Of Moles and Molehunters:

A Review of Counterintelligence
Literature, 1977-92
An Intelligence
Monograph
Center for the
Study of Intelligence
CSI 93-002
October 1993
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Of Moles and Molehunters:
A Review of Counterintelligence
Literature, 1977-92
An Intelligence
Monograph
Center for the
Study of Intelligence
Reverse Blank
Er r at um Notice to recipients of the Center for the Study of Intelligence monograph
CSI 93-002, October 1993 Of Moles and Molehunters: A Review of
Counterintelligence Literature, 1977-92.
Please replace page iii of this publication with the attached page.
Foreword
The Center for the Study of Intelligence (CSI) was established by
CIA in February 1975 as an in-house think tank. The Center's objectives are
to contribute to a broader understanding of the art of intelligence and to as-
sist in defining and analyzing major issues facing the profession. Questions
about the Center's activities may be addressed to its Director on 30214 (se-
cure) or(703) 351-2698.
The CSI Monograph Program publishes individual or group research
papers on the history, theory, or craft of intelligence. Included are studies by
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as well as manuscripts submitted by officers throughout the Intelligence
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Comments on this monograph may be directed to the author,
Cleveland C. Cram, who holds the copyright. His home telephone number is
(202) 966-6548. Mr. Cram was an officer in CIA's Operations Directorate
from 1949 to 1975, served as a Deputy Chief of Station in Europe for nine
years, and later was a Chief of Station in Europe and the Western
Hemisphere. After retiring, he did research for the Agency on various coun-
terintelligence matters until 1992.
Mr. Cram served as a naval officer in World War II. He was edu-
cated at St. John's University in Minnesota and took his master's and doc-
toral degrees at Harvard.
::: CSI 93-002
October 1993
Foreword
The Center for the Study of Intelligence (CSI) was established by
CIA in February 1975 as an in-house think tank. The Center's objectives are
to contribute to a broader understanding of the art of intelligence and to as-
sist in defining and analyzing major issues facing the profession. Questions
about the Center's activities may be addressed to its Director on 30214 (se-
cure) or (703) 351-2698.
The CSI Monograph Program publishes individual or group research
papers on the history, theory, or craft of intelligence. Included are studies by
officers on rotation to the Center under its Fellows and Scholars Program,
as well as manuscripts submitted by officers throughout the Intelligence
Community. The publications are produced in consultation with interested
components, but there is no formal coordination. The opinions expressed do
not necessarily reflect the views of the Center or the CIA.
Comments on this monograph may be directed to the author,
Cleveland C. Cram. His home telephone number is (202) 966-6548. He was
an officer in CIA's Operations Directorate from 1949 to 1975 and served as
a Deputy Chief of Station in Europe for nine years. He later served as Chief
of Station in Europe and the Western Hemisphere. After returning, he did
research for the Agency on various counterintelligence matters until 1992.
Mr. Cram served as a naval officer in World War II. He was edu-
cated at St. John's University in Minnesota and took his master's and doc-
toral degrees at Harvard.
CSI 93-002
October 1993
Table of Contents
Page
I. Introduction
II. Background Essay
A Turning Point
The American and Canadian Scenes
The Decline of Conspiricism
The British Connection
Counterintelligence Histories
Two More of Special Note
III. The Literature
Chronology of Publications
Reviews of Selected Books
Legend: The Secret World of Lee Harvey Oswald
by Edward J. Epstein
The Climate of Treason by Andrew Boyle
Wilderness of Mirrors by David C. Martin
1
3
3
5
10
14
19
21
23
23
25
25
27
29
Shadrin: The Spy Who Never Came Back by Henry 30
Hurt
Their Trade Is Treachery by Chapman Pincher
For Services Rendered: Leslie James Bennett and
the RCMP Security Service by John Sawatsky
The FBI/KGB War: A Special Agent's Story by
Robert J. Lampher and Tom Shachtman
Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of a-
Senior Intelligence Officer by Peter Wright
Molehunt: The Full Story of the Soviet Spy in
MI-5 by Nigel West
The Spycatcher Trial by Malcolm Turnbull
The Spycatcher Affair by Chapman Pincher
The Storm Birds: Soviet Post-War Defectors by
Gordon Brook-Shepherd
Spy vs. Spy: The Shocking True Story of the FBI's
War Against Soviet Agents in America by Ronald
Kessler
Deception: The Invisible War Between the KGB
and the CIA by Edward J. Epstein
33
35
38
42
44
46
48
51
57
59
CSI 93-002
October 1993
KGB: The Inside Story of Its Operations From
Lenin to Gorbachev by Christopher Andrew and
Oleg Gordievsky
Page
61
Cold Warrior: James Jesus Angieton: The CIA's
Master Spy Hunter by Thomas Mangold
64
Molehunt: The Secret Search for Traitors That
Shattered the CIA by David Wise
67
The Spy Who Saved the World: How a Soviet
Colonel Changed the Course of the Cold War by
Jerrold L. Schecter and Peter S. Deriabin
69
CSI 93-002
October 1993
vi
I. Introduction
This monograph has two parts. The first is an essay on the coun-
terintelligence literature produced from 1977 to 1992. The second contains
reviews of selected books from that period. The essay and reviews concen-
trate on the major counterintelligence issues of the period. Highlighted are
the controversial views of James Angieton, former head of CIA's
Counterintelligence (CI) Staff, about the threat posed by Soviet intelligence
operations. Also featured is Soviet defector Anatole Golitsyn, whose claims
about Soviet operations had a compelling influence on Western
counterintelligence services beginning about 1962 and until 1975.
The study focuses mainly on books about the American, British, and
Canadian intelligence and security services as they dealt with the Soviet in-
telligence threat, although it also mentions the services of other West
European countries such as France, West Germany, and Norway. Not every
book on espionage and counterintelligence published between 1977 and
1992 is reviewed; only those that are historically accurate, at least in gen-
eral, and were influential are assessed. Excluded are some recent works
like Widows, by William R. Corson and Susan and Joseph Trentobecause
they are not reputable by even the generally low standards of most coun-
terintelligence writing.
No study exists on Angleton's efforts in retirement to spread his
conspiracy and other theories through writers such as Edward J. Epstein.
Nor has there been any substantial analysis of the impact in Britain of reve-
lations such as the Blunt case, the false charges made against Sir Roger
Hollis and his deputy, Graham Mitchell, nor of the events that led eventu-
ally to the famous Spycatcher trial in Australia. The books reviewed in this
monograph appeared during these difficult times, and an effort has been
made to put them in their historical perspective. Some of these publications,
with their extreme assertions, distracted intelligence and security services
from important challenges they faced in the last years of the Cold War. That
they overcame these diversions reflects the common sense and decency ex-
ercised by leaders of intelligence services in the post-Angleton years.
Readers of the entire monograph will find certain observations and
comments in the essay reappear in individual reviews, often with more de-
tail. The writer anticipates that the monograph will be used as a reference
by some who may turn directly to a particular review without having read
the essay. For that reason, the repetition seems worthwhile.
The author, a retired CIA officer, never served in the CI staff under
Angieton but he worked closely with him from various stations throughout
Europe and the Western Hemisphere. This study reflects that experience,
research, and point of view. In some instances precise attribution to support
certain statements that are made cannot be provided in this unclassified
monograph because of classification restrictions, although the factual basis
for these statements is sound.
II. Background Essay
The year 1974 was a watershed in literature about the CIA. Before
that time, only a few outsiders, usually professional journalists, had written
books critical of the Agency. Most of the others were neutral or even posi-
tive, especially those written by former Agency officials like Allen Dulles
and Lyman Kirkpatrick. But in 1974 a disgruntled former Agency em-
ployee, Philip Agee, published his highly critical book Inside the Company:
CIA Diary. Books by other ex-employeesJ. B. Smith, John Stockwell,
Victor Marchetti (with J. D. Marks), and R. W. McGeheefollowed in
quick succession, each exposing highly confidential material.
These authors usually wrote about subjects of which they had spe-
cial knowledge, and the cumulative effect was to breach the walls of con-
fidentiality that had protected Agency operations and personnel. Although
the net effect was damagingespecially in the case of Agee, who disclosed
the identities of officers serving abroad under coverinformation about
sensitive operations against the Soviet Union and its intelligence organs was
not compromised.
A Turning Point
The change that occurred in the mid-1970s began when Edward J.
Epstein published a series of articles that later, in 1978, were the basis for
his book Legend: The Secret World of Lee Harvey Oswald. The articles, and
especially the book, publicized for the first time clashes that had occurred
within the Agency between the Counterintelligence Staff and the Soviet
Division over the bona fides of a KGB defector named Yuriy Nosenko.
Because Epstein's writings contained so much information about
sensitive CIA and FBI operations, it was generally assumed he had a willing
and knowledgeable source, either a serving officer (considered doubtful) or
a retired senior person with wide knowledge of anti-Soviet operations over-
seas and in the United States. Neither the articles nor the book was anno-
tated, however. Epstein stated that he had spoken occasionally with James
Angieton, the retired chief of CIA's Counterintelligence Staff, but did not
acknowledge that he was the source.
1
Subsequentlyin Deception, published in 1988, a year after Angleton's deathEpstein was more
forthcoming regarding his sources He admitted that, from 1977 onward, he had obtained large
amounts of highly classified information from Angieton, N S. Miler, Tennet H Bagley, and others in
the CIA, all of whom shared Angleton's controversial views on the nature of the threat posed by
Soviet intelligence operations.
James Angieton, head of CIA's
Counterintelligence Staff from
1954 until his dismissal in late
1974. He propagated the theory
of an omnipotent KGB con-
spiracy against American soci-
ety and politics involving agent
penetrations, deception and
disinformation.
When Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) William Colby dis-
missed him in 1974, Angieton for the next six months spent part of his time
at Langley, introducing members of the new CI Staff to such people as his
defector friend, Anatole Golitsyn. Gradually, however, the former counterin-
telligence chief realized that his career with the CIA in fact was finished.
The dismissal was a terrible blow; he became embittered and withdrew for a
time into alcohol.
Later, the press began to seek him out, and this revived his comba-
tive spirit. Angieton began to play off one writer against another, planting
his ideas and opinions among them. He also changed his luncheon venue
from a local Washington restaurant to the more politically congenial at-
mosphere of the Army-Navy Club. A counterattack was planned against the
Agency, in particular the new CI Staff. His objective was to prove how
wrong its assessment of Soviet operations was and to indict his successors
for negligence of duty.
In this period, Angieton, while not neglecting the possibility of
KGB penetration, stressed his belief that the main threat came from KGB
deception and disinformation. To support his thesis, he continually cited
evidence that Golitsyn had provided. Angleton's ideas, propounded by
Epstein and other writers, caught fire and created a virtual cottage industry
of academic and think tank specialists on the issues he raised.
Anatole Golitsyn, a KGB
officer who defected in 1961.
His controversial claims about
Soviet penetrations of CIA and
other KGB operations were ac-
cepted hy Angieton and
precipitated the molehunling
frenzy.
Angleton's British allies took a different line. They concentrated on
KGB penetration because events in the United Kingdom provided some ex-
ceptional examples, such as the treachery of Sir Anthony Blunt, which be-
came public in 1979. Moles in Her Majesty's government became a public
scandal when the traitors in the so-called Cambridge "Ring of Five"
2
were
exposed, embarrassing the Thatcher government and culminating in the
1986 Spycatcher trial in Australia.
The American and Canadian Scenes
In 1975 Aaron Latham, a young writer interested in the CIA, con-
tacted Angieton. Latham, who held a doctorate in literature from Princeton
and was editor of New York Magazine, was attracted by Angleton's associa-
tion with Ezra Pound and other American poets. An initial two-hour call
was followed by luncheon and visits to Angleton's home and orchid sheds.
Latham wanted to write about the CIA and claims he decided to do a fic-
tional work on the advice of Victor Marchetti, a former CIA officer who
had written one entitled The Rope Dancer. The result was Latham's novel
H. A. R. "Kim" Philby, Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, Anthony Blunt, and, identified later, John
Caimcross.
called Orchids for Mother, published in 1977, about a CIA officer who is
fired by the Director over differences in policy.
The protagonists obviously are Angieton and Colby. The Angieton
character, "Mother" in the story, is portrayed as a genius whose talents are
wasted, and the Director is an ambitious bureaucrat of dubious loyalty. The
dismissed CIA man decides he must rid the Agency of this DCI. Distraught and
depressed, the old veteran accomplishes this by sacrificing himself to an as-
sassin he hires. In the process the Director is implicated and accused of mur-
dering his antagonist. This bizarre and vicious tale did not sell well. Mrs.
Angieton called the book "garbage" and claimed her husband never read it.
In the summer of 1977, Angieton developed a new forum for his
ideas. He and like-minded associates organized the Security and
Intelligence Fund (SIF) to defend US security and intelligence organizations
and to raise money for the defense of two FBI officers then under indict-
ment by the Carter administration. Here Angieton was on surer ground. He
had the support of a large number of FBI retirees as well as many former
CIA officers. This was the period when the Pike and Church Congressional
committees were in full cry investigating and exposing CIA operations, and
numerous ex-intelligence people believed they had gone too far. SIF raised
more than $600,000 and within six months was reported to have more than
17, 000 members. Angieton was chairman, and his friends held senior posi-
tions.
Soon thereafter, however, the US Attorney General decided not to pro-
secute the accused FBI officers, and the purpose for which SIF was created
more or less evaporated. Angieton then converted it into a forum for spreading
information about Soviet deception. The Fund remained in effect into the
1980s until, after Angleton's death and the coming of glasnost, it withered away.
Publication in 1978 of Edward J. Epstein's Legend: The Secret
World of Lee Harvey Oswald provided enormous stimulus to the deception
thesis by suggesting that Yuriy Nosenko, a Soviet defector, had been sent by
the KGB to provide a cover story for Lee Harvey Oswald, who the book al-
leged was a KGB agent. Epstein in effect wrote two books: one focused on
Lee Harvey Oswald's Marine career in Japan, his time in Russia, and his
return to the United States; the second gave Nosenko the key role in an al-
leged KGB deception operation designed to cover Oswald (and the Soviet
Government) and negate Golitsyn's revelations.
Because Epstein cited so much classified information that could
only have come from someone with intimate knowledge of the Nosenko
case, blame for the leak naturally focused on Angieton and his supporters.
,J9
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1 v
Kun'y Nosenko (left). Edward J. Epstein, in his Legend: The Secret
of Lee Harvey Oswald, suggested that Nosenko's defection from the
KGB in 1964 was in reality a mission to provide a cover story for
Oswald (on the right), which would absolve the Soviet Government
of complicity in the assassination of President Kennedy.
Thus, it came as no surprise when, 10 years after the former CI chief's
death, Epstein admitted his sources had included Angieton, Bagley, Miler,
and other ex-Agency associates who shared his views. Despite some nega-
tive reviews, the book sold well and was important in spreading Angleton's
theory of a super KGB manipulating American society and politics through
its sophisticated deception apparatus.
The theme of Legend was extended in a 1980 novel called The Spike
by Amaud de Borchgrave and Robert Moss. De Borchgrave, soon-to-be edi-
tor of the new Washington Times, and Moss were friends and admirers of
Angieton, whose conspiracy theories were consistent with their own. Moss
had been spreading Angieton propaganda for some time, such as the claim
that Golitsyn had provided the lead to Philby. This caught the eye of Adm.
Stansfield Turner, who was then DCI. When he asked the CI Staff about it,
the staff replied from solid knowledge that the claim was false.
The inferior quality and crudeness of The Spike exceed even that of
the Latham novel. Briefly, it told the story of a young liberal who had been
taken in by leftists. He came to realize his error, thanks to guidance from an
elderly, former CIA counterintelligence officer who had been fired by a
Director obviously acting at the Kremlin's direction. Moscow's secret de-
signs are revealed by a high-level KGB defector whose escape is managed
by MI-6 because the CIA is so penetrated it cannot be trusted with the mis-
sion. The KGB defector identifies the Soviet agents in the White House, the
CIA, and elsewhere in the government, and the wise old counterintelligence
chief, obviously meant to be Angieton, saves the country. Though far-
removed from reality, the book was an alternate Book-of-the-Month Club
selection.
The year 1980 was not entirely one of wine and roses for the
Angletonians because Wilderness of Mirrors, written by David Martin, also
appeared. Now considered a classic of intelligence literature, the book was
the product of more than two years of interviewing CIA retirees, including
Angieton. The latter at first favored the author with many secrets but then
cut him off when he learned Martin was also in touch with Angleton's CIA
critics. One of these was Clare E. Petty, who had worked on Angleton's
staff and accepted his conspiracy theories but by this time had concluded
his boss was either a giant fraud or a KGB agent. Martin originally intended
to publish Petty's view in Newsweek but abandoned that plan when
Angieton threatened legal action.
Wilderness of Mirrors exposed Golitsyn as an unimportant defector
who caused more trouble than he was worth, suggested Nosenko was
genuine, and punched many holes in the Angieton myth. Publication pro-
voked a lengthy and denunciatory review by Epstein in The New York Times
and a long public statement by Angieton claiming Martin had robbed him of
his phrase "wilderness of mirrors." In fact, Angieton had himself lifted it
from "Gerontion," a poem by T. S. Eliot.
Events, however, were weakening Epstein's faith in his master. In
1981, Prime Minister Thatcher was forced by the publication of Chapman
Pincher's Their Trade Is Treachery to admit that her government had inves-
tigated Sir Roger Hollis, the former Director General of MI-5, as an alleged
Soviet agent. Mrs. Thatcher stated in Parliament that a high-level investiga-
tion of these charges found them to be false.
Some months later Epstein managed to interview Michel
Goleniewski, a defector who had become convinced he was the last of the
Romanovs but otherwise remained a sensible person. Epstein asked if
Goleniewski thought Hollis was a KGB mole, an idea supported by
Angieton. The defector replied in the negative and then listed the Soviet
agents MI-5 had apprehended from the information he had provided, ad-
ding, "If the KGB had had a mole at the head of MI-5, you can be sure all
these men would somehow have escaped."
A further confusion of the issues occurred in 1979 and 1980 with
the publication of a series of articles by Joe Trento, a reporter in
Wilmington, Delaware. Trento launched a number of charges against
Angieton, including some erroneous information about certain cases.
Sir Roger Hollis, former
Director-General of MIS, the
British counterintelligence
service. In 1981 Prime Minister
Thatcher was forced to reveal in
Parliament that Hollis al one
lime was suspected of being a
Soviet agent, hut that a high-
level investigation had exoner-
ated him.
Angleton's response to the Trento articles was to attack DCI Stansfield
Turner, who he assumed was the source of the classified information Trento
cited.
3
The next significant book involving Angieton was Henry Hurt's
Shadrin, published in 1981. While working on Legend as an assistant to
Epstein, Hurt had become aware of the mysterious disappearance of
Shadrin, a Soviet defector. Sensing there was a story there, Hurt began in-
terviewing the missing defector's wife and her lawyer. The Reader's Digest
agreed to provide financial support for the project, which began as a maga-
zine article but quickly grew into a book. Fulton Oursler, then the chief edi-
tor of The Reader's Digest, was a man of strong rightwing views and much
influenced by the Angleton-Epstein theories. The inability of the US
authorities to provide an answer to the mystery of Shadrin's disappearance
had provoked wide criticism. Hurt's account not only revived the old
Golitsyn-Nosenko controversy but also made it more current by citing the
appearance of a mysterious KGB man referred to as "Igor."
'At the time, this writer had interviewed Angieton on several occasions in conjunction with a history
being written of the years when he was in charge of counterintelligence at CIA. (The interviews had
ended because it had become evident that his judgment and veracity could no longer be trusted.)
When Angieton queried the writer about whether he was responsible for the leaks to Trento, he was
assured they had come from others. Angieton then proceeded to accuse Admiral Turner of being the
sourcea totally unfounded accusation.
Angieton doubtlessly contributed information to Hurt, but so did a
number of FBI people who talked more than they should have. In sum,
much classified information was made public that could only have endan-
gered the safety of Igor, assuming he was genuine. This was a matter on
which Agency people again divided: Angieton believed Igor was not
genuine; others thought his valuable information proved his bona fides. The
Hurt book, however, was essentially propaganda intended to benefit Mrs.
Shadrin. Its attack on the Agency, the FBI, and the new CI Staff did not
help her cause, and the book's many inaccuracies distorted an already con-
fused situation.
A number of other books appeared during the early 1980s: William
Colby's Honorable Men, in which he explains why he dismissed Angieton;
Tom Powers' The Man Who Kept the Secrets, highly praising Angieton (a
position from which Powers later retreated); and John Sawatsky's For
Services Rendered, on the Bennett case in Canada.
Leslie James Bennett, a longtime civilian employee of the Royal
Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Security Service, was impugned by
Clare Petty, then a major conspiracy theorist on Angleton's staff. Angieton
could have stopped the ensuing investigation but instead lent it impetus by
suggesting that the Mounties consult Golitsyn. That sealed Bennett's doom
and in due course brought his dismissal from the service in 1972, even
though there was no substantial evidence against him, and he passed his
polygraph tests. The case tore the Mounties apart and gave ammunition to
those who argued that the internal security service should be removed from
the RCMP. Within a few years, Canada had a civilian security service.
Sawatsky's book drew considerable attention in Canada but little in the
United States.
The Decline of Conspiracism
In the years after Legend was published, Epstein became a specialist
on Soviet disinformation and deception that, along with "active measures"
to which they are related, preoccupied a number of scholars and writers dur-
ing the 1980s. They were encouraged by the testimony of several Soviet
defectors as well as the indefatigable Golitsyn, who in 1984 added his own
volume, New Lies for Old.
Epstein's Deception: The Invisible War Between the KGB and the
CIA was published in 1988, a year after Angleton's death. Like Legend, its
predecessor, it has two parts. The second part describes various deceptions
practiced through the centuries and can be ignored; it says nothing new. The
first 105 pages, however, are interesting. Therein Epstein repeats the old
theories about Nosenko and, in his acknowledgments, names all his sources
for the past years, including Angieton, Bagley, Miler, and Sullivan. He also
asserts that his informants wittingly gave him sensitive information.
Leslie James Bennett. His dismis-
sal from the Security Service of
the Royal Canadian Mounted
Police on charges that he was a
Soviet agent led to creation of a
civilian security service in
Canada. The Canadian
Government eventually exoner-
ated him..
This is an astonishing set of revelations. The feeling that this book
is Epstein's last hurrah, at least in the world of intelligence, is hard to avoid.
With glasnost, he apparently sensed that the days of the conspiracists were
numbered. It was time to take the money and run.
Ron Kessler, an investigative journalist who writes frequently on
espionage, in 1988 published Spy vs Spy: The Shocking Story of the FBI's
Secret War Against Soviet Agents in America. The book is an excellent
review of the FBI counterintelligence division's work against Soviet agents
during roughly the past twenty years. In it he chronicles the damaging
activities of the U. S. Navy spy, John Walker, as well as Ronald Pelton, who
had penetratred the NSA. Both of them worked for the KGB.
Kessler also recounts the disastrous career of Edward Lee Howard,
the only CIA officer ever to defect to the USSR. For CIA people, his
account of two penetrations of the Agency during the period James
Angieton was chief of counterintelligence is riveting: one agent, Karl
Koecher, worked for the Czech Intelligence Service, which passed his
material to the KGB, and the other was a long-term agent of the Chinese
Intelligence Service. These two agents are the only moles known to have
penetrated at the CIA. Spy vs Spy provides the layman an excellent inside
view of how the FBI operated successfully against Soviet agents in the
U. S. At the same time, Kessler is critical, when appropriate, of FBI errors.
I I
Karl and Harm Koecher were agents of Ihe Czech intelligence service
whose swinging lifestyle involved numerous people in Washington
until the Koechers' arrest in 1984. Karl, a translator of Russian
material, was one ofthe two identified moles in the CIA. His treach-
ery compromised a highly productive CIA source in the Soviet
Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In 1991 an English writer, Tom Mangold, published Cold Warrior:
James Jesus Angieton: The CIA's Master Spy Hunter, to which he devoted
three years of intensive work and $300,000 of Simon and Schuster's money.
Mangold has carefully sourced his book, the research is impressive and im-
peccable, and the writing is good if at times a bit overwrought. But it is far
more a history of the Agency's CI Staff for the last 10 years under
Angleton's command than it is a story about the man himself. As history it
is accurate and fair, although the absence of a chapter on liaison with Israeli
intelligence (chopped out by the editor) is unfortunate.
The book caused considerable commentary because Mangold claim-
ed he had interviewed 208 CIA retirees, until it was noted that John
Ranelagh, another English author, had interviewed even more CIA retirees
for his book. The Agency: The Rise and Decline of the CIA. Mangold's con-
clusion that counterintelligence suffered at Angleton's hands during the
Cold War when the Agency most needed common sense and honesty is well
established and supported by numerous examples.
12
COBETCKMH PASBEf l HMK
5
KMM OMJ1BM
19121988
nOHTA CCCP1990
The USSR published a stamp
honoring H. A. R. Philby for
his service as a "mole"
within Ihe United Kingdom's
MI-6.
A second book about Angieton and the old CI Staff followed only
10 months after Cold Warrior. Molehunt: The Secret Search for Traitors
That Shattered CIA by David Wise, the veteran intelligence writer, is also
well researched and smooth reading. It concentrates on the hunt for
"Sasha," a Soviet agent who, Golitsyn claimed, had provided the Russians
valuable information. That search for the supposed mole within CIA
severely damaged the careers of some CIA officers. Because his sources did
not have the complete "Sasha" story, however, Wise has presented a some-
what distorted account.
4
Otherwise, the Wise book is accurate and can serve
as a useful cautionary tale for management.
4
The complete "Sasha" story resides in the archives of CIA's Counterintelligence Center, where ac-
cess to it remains highly restricted.
13
Sir Anthony Blunt, Keeper of
the Queen's Pictures. His
confession in 1964 to having
been a Soviet agent while
working for MI-5 during
World War II was followed hy
a grant of immunity to obtain
full disclosure of his treach-
ery.
The British Connection
The intelligence literature discussed below is by British authors and
deals almost solely with British events. None of the books is anti-CIA.
Several express some respect for James Angieton, although this attitude also
was in retreat among British authors by the end of the 1980s. A few of the
books explore the Golitsyn-Nosenko controversy, and some think Golitsyn
helped British intelligence. Most of the writing in varying degrees criticizes
MI-5, the British internal security service. Less attention is given to the
Secret Intelligence Service (SIS)Britain's foreign intelligence arm, other-
wise known as MI-6except where the Philby and Blake cases are dis-
cussed.
Angieton helped at least three of the authors, but poor sourcing
makes it hard to determine the amount of information he gave them. He in
fact played an important role in igniting a series of events that embarrassed
the Thatcher government. Had Thatcher not enjoyed such strong majorities
in the House of Commons, one or more of these affairs might have brought
her government down.
Angieton, dating from his early contacts with H. A. R. "Kim"
Philby, had a keen interest in British intelligence affairs. Partly on his
recommendation, Golitsyn spent nearly five months in Britain in 1963 and
met with British security and intelligence people several times afterward.
14
Golitsyn made a powerful impression on two British officers in particular:
Arthur Martin, the senior counterespionage officer in MI-5, and Stephen de
Mowbray, a junior officer in MI-6 who served in Washington in the mid-
1960s. Both men admired Angieton and largely accepted Golitsyn's ideas
about penetration and deception, despite the fact that most of the earlier
British believers in his allegations had become apostates.
Angleton's influence in MI-5 and MI-6 declined further during the
early 1970s, but Martin and de Mowbray remained in contact with Golitsyn.
In the early 1980s, the two British officers helped Golitsyn prepare his book
New Lies for Old. De Mowbray fervently believed the West was not suffi-
ciently alert to the threat of Soviet deception. He was especially annoyed
when a paper he had prepared on Soviet penetration, with special reference
to Hollis, received no response from 10 Downing Street, even after he had
personally delivered it to Prime Minister Thatcher's secretary.
In 1978 Andrew Boyle, an English writer, came to Washington to do
research at the National Archives on a book he was preparing on the career
of an Englishman rumored to have been a Soviet agent during World War II.
The subject was Sir Anthony Blunt, Keeper of the Queen's Pictures, who
had long been a target of gossip revolving around his homosexual lifestyle
as well as his close association with Guy Burgess and Kim Philby. To avoid
getting himself in legal difficulty, Boyle codenamed the subject of his book
"Maurice" after a homosexual character in an E. M. Forster novel. During
his research in Washington, Boyle met Angieton, and as a result his book
The Climate of Treason includes frequent respectful references to him.
The Climate of Treason appeared on 5 November 1979. Within 10
days it forced Mrs. Thatcher to disclose in Parliament Blunt's 1964 confes-
sion to having been a Soviet agent while working for MI-5 during World
War II, and that he had been granted immunity from prosecution in order to
obtain full disclosure of his treachery. This agreement had been kept a
secret for 15 years, during which time he worked for the Royal Household
and was given a knighthood by the Queen. The shock of Boyle's exposure
of Blunt was only the first and least damaging of several revelations of
treachery that were in store for Mrs. Thatcher. At the time, however, her
long and revealing statement about Blunt seemed to confirm that she was an
exponent of unusual candor who intended to demystify the secret world of
intelligence. The question of how much penetration there had been of the
foreign, secret, and security services in the 1940s and 1950s seemed to be
moving toward an answer. Mrs. Thatcher's statement made the Boyle book
a best seller, earning its author a reputation and much money.
For some inexplicable reason, Boyle included a story that brought
him considerable trouble and damaged his enhanced reputation. In Chapter
Nine, "Enter the Fifth Man," he introduces a figure codenamed "Basil"
15
who he suggests was a homosexual nuclear scientist serving in the British
Embassy in Washington with Donald Maclean. From this slender evidence
he offers this person as a likely candidate for "The Fifth Man," the then-
unidentified fifth member of the group of traitors from Cambridge
University. The press soon found an elderly British scientist in Washington
named Dr. Wilfrid Basil Mann, by then an American citizen who, during the
period 1949-51, had served under Philby in the MI-6 office of the British
Embassy as a scientific officer in liaison with the CIA.
Dr. Mann denied he was "The Fifth Man," and rather belatedly the
American authorities came to his rescue with assurances that he was not a
Soviet agent and never had been. Both Boyle and Angieton remained silent,
however, and it was left to Dr. Mann later to write his own rebuttal in which
he set the record completely straight. Boyle had never interviewed Mann,
nor did he apologize after the affair was resolved.
Dr. Mann, who had a personal friendship with Angieton in the
Philby days, remains perplexed regarding the origin of the spurious story.
We know that Angieton and Boyle had a close relationship during Boyle's
stay in Washington. Angieton probably confirmed Boyle's suspicions of
Blunt and, at some point in his circular and obscure way of speaking, very
likely provided some information about Dr. Mann. For unexplained reasons,
Boyle got the story wrong and foolishly included this distorted version in
his otherwise quite admirable book. Dr. Allen Weinstein, author of Perjury:
The Hiss-Chambers Case, later called the libeling of Dr. Mann a "case of
blatant McCarthyism based on gossip from spook informants."
The early 1980s were marked by more trouble for Mrs. Thatcher
from the secret world. There was the union trouble at Government
Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and the conviction of Geoffrey
Prime for spying for the Soviet Union, but the worst blow of all came with
the publication in 1981 of Their Trade Is Treachery by Chapman Pincher, an
investigative journalist. The Pincher book was to prove a major political
problem because it triggered a series of events culminating five years later
in the Spycatcher trial in Australia.
To some extent the book was the result of a conversation between
Jonathan Aitken, a Tory member of Parliament, and James Angieton in
Washington in December of 1979, just a few days after Mrs. Thatcher had
made her admission regarding Blunt. For reasons best known to himself,
Angieton apparently hinted to Aitken that the Blunt revelations were just
the tip of a mammoth problem, which might well lead to an investigation of
penetrations of MI-5 and MI-6. Aitken was fascinated and asked for more
data, but Angieton demurred and said he would think about how next to
proceed. Upon his return to England, Aitken found a letter from Angieton
telling him to speak to Arthur Martin and Christopher Phillpotts, both of
16
whom had been involved in molehunting for British counterintelligence.
They told Aitken exactly what Angieton intended he should hear: that, be-
ginning in 1963, the government had investigated Graham Mitchell and
Roger Hollis as putative Soviet agents. The letter Aitken subsequently sent
Mrs. Thatcher reflects what they told him, and a copy is in an appendix to
the Pincher book.
Aitken told Pincher most of what he had learned from Martin and
Phillpotts, but then, in the early autumn of 1980, events took an even more
bizarre turn. Lord Rothschild secretly brought Peter Wright, a former mem-
ber of MI-5, to England from Australia and introduced him to Chapman
Pincher. This led to a working partnership between Wright and Pincher
resulting in the eventual publication of Their Trade Is Treachery, which
revealed the investigations within MI-5 of Hollis and Mitchell as possible
Soviet agents and many other MI-5 secrets. It was this book that forced
Mrs. Thatcher, in yet another admission to the House of Commons, to con-
firm the investigations had taken place but that subsequent reviews revealed
no evidence to support the charges.
When Pincher's book became a bestseller, it was not public
knowledge that the major source for his sensational revelations was Peter
Wright, who was quietly tucked away at his Australian stud farm. Nor was
it common knowledge that Angieton had played a role in launching the
project. There was, however, much speculation about the source for so
much sensitive material.
The mystery was resolved in 1986 when Peter Wright had com-
pleted a book, Spycatcher. The Candid Autobiography of a Senior
Intelligence Officer, and was moving to have it published in Australia.
Upon learning this, the British Government got an injunction to stop its
publication. The trial that followed revealed that Wright had been the main
source for Pincher's allegations in Their Trade is Treachery against Hollis
and Mitchell. A small group within the British Government (including
MI-5) knew this and could have stopped Pincher from publishing his book
but decided not to do so. Pincher, in effect, thus had published with implicit
government approval.
This revelation during the trial seriously undermined the British
Government's position and prompted publication of Wright's Spycatcher in
many countries. When the case finally made its way to a final hearing in the
House of Lords, the judges found themselves unable to uphold the obliga-
tion of confidentiality on which the government depended. As the affair
unfolded between 1985 and 1988, the government's efforts to stop publica-
tion were perceived as absurd and desperate.
17
Peter Wright, a counterespi-
onage specialist in MI-5 who
was obsessed wilh the belief
that British security services,
including MI-5, were
penetrated hy Soviet agents.
After his forced retirement, Ihe
Thatcher government's efforts
to stop publication of Wright's
hook Spycatcher culminated in
a highly publicized trial.
Mrs. Thatcher assigned Sir Robert Armstrong to present the British
Government's case in the Australian court. He did not do well; he was a
reluctant witness and was harried by a disrespectful young Australian law-
yer, Malcolm Tumbull. Armstrong admitted he was the government's "fall
guy" in the effort to exhaust every recourse against Wright's book. He will
always be remembered for his locution during the trial that in his job some-
times one had "to be economical with the truth."
The book that prompted Mrs. Thatcher's futile effort was Peter
Wright's but was ghostwritten by Paul Greengrass. Wright could not have
anticipated that, by an accident of fate, it would be propelled onto the best-
seller lists and thus make him a fortune. He had two grievances against
MI-5, his former employer:
Its failure to give him the full pension to which by any standard of
decency he was entitled, a failure for which under secrecy regula-
tions he possessed no redress.
MI-5's determination that it could not be proved that Hollis had
been a Soviet agent, a position that was strongly reinforced in a
subsequent official study by Lord Trend, a former Cabinet
Secretary.
18
The Spycatcher trial in 1986 generated three books worth reading.
The most spirited, although a bit prejudiced, is Turnbull's account of the
trial in Sydney entitled The Spycatcher Trial. The second is Pincher's The
Spycatcher Affair. Although self-exculpatory, it is a good account of what
took place between 1980 and the trial. The third book is Molehunt by Nigel
West, which summarizes the trial from a pro-Thatcher point of view. In ad-
dition, a chapter in David Hooper's Official Secrets called "The Wright
Case: A Tale of Perversity" is an excellent summary by a British solicitor
who participated in the case as a member of Turnbull's team.
In the end, a cartoon that appeared in a London daily after the trial
perhaps summed it up best: A group of bewigged barristers is shown in the
office of Her Majesty's Attorney General, and one is commenting: "So far
the legal fees come to approximately ten million poundswouldn't it have
been cheaper to have increased the old codger's pension in the first place?"
Counterintelligence Histories
Two books on counterintelligence history are Robert Lamphere's
The FBI/KGB War: A Special Agent's Story, published in 1986; and Gordon
Brook-Shepherd's The Storm Birds: Soviet Post-War Defectors, published in
1988. These two works describe the counterintelligence benefits flowing
from defectors and other exceptional events, such as the break into the KGB
ciphers achieved at the end of World War II.
Lamphere's book concentrates on the FBI's work against the Soviet
intelligence services' operations in the United States. Although Soviet espi-
onage operations had been suspected for some time, details of these activi-
ties were obtained through the defection in Canada of Igor Gouzenko and in
America of Elizabeth Bentley and others who had been involved in the
Soviet spy apparatus. Their revelations were supplemented by an unusual
accomplishment in the cryptographic field.
Lamphere had the good fortune to be assigned to handle the FBI's
liaison with the National Security Agency (NSA). While there he was the
Bureau's principal contact with Meredith Gardner, the cryptographic wizard,
about the time he broke the KGB cipher system. Using the fragmentary but
valuable information obtained from this breakthrough, Lamphere partici-
pated in uncovering some of the major Soviet espionage rings then in opera-
tion. His work included the Philby case as well as interrogating the atomic
scientist Klaus Fuchs, pursuing Harry Gold, assisting in the Judith Coplon
trial, and other memorable cases of the immediate postwar period.
19
Oleg Gordievsky, "the most
remarkable and productive
Soviet defector of recent
times." Having been a valuable
penetration of the KGB for
more than a decade after
deciding to defect, he remained
a gold mine of information on
the KGB after escaping from
Moscow in 1985.
Conflicts with J. Edgar Hoover led to Lamphere's early resignation
from the Bureau. In writing his book, his excellent memory was reinforced
by access to FBI records. NSA, after considerable pressure was brought to
bear, gave Lamphere permission to describe in elementary detail Gardner's
magnificent achievement against the KGB cipher system. It is a gripping
story well and accurately told.
The Storm Birds, Brook-Shepherd's excellent history of the postwar
Soviet defectors, benefited from assistance by the British intelligence and
security services and the CIA. As a result, the author produced an accurate
and complete story about most of the major Soviet defectors, all but one of
whom (Shevchenko) had served with the KGB or GRU. He eschewed the
controversial issues featured in many of the other books in this collection,
although he devotes a chapter each to Anatole Golitsyn and Yuriy Nosenko
and gives each objective and fair consideration. Brook-Shephard's sum-
maries of those defections are probably the most accurate evaluations avail-
able to the public and help to make comprehensible the two men and the
issues associated with them.
These two histories constitute a mine of important information on
the early defectors, both American and Soviet, as well as detail on later
ones, like Oleg Gordievsky, who provided inside information at critical
20
Col. Oleg Penkovsky, an
Anglo-American spy who
played a vital role in helping to
identify Soviet missiles secretly
installed in Cuba. Claims that
he was under KGB control
were finally refuted in 1979 hy
a comprehensive survey of Ihe
case.
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periods in history. The books also illustrate how important the defectors
were, not only in helping Western intelligence and security services but also
in alerting the Western public to the Soviet threat. Counterintelligence
officers should read both of them.
Two More of Special Note
Finally, two other books are essential reading for the counterintelli-
gence specialist, and for anyone else interested in recent events affecting
that field of intelligence. The first is the magisterial work by Christopher
Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky, KGB: The Inside Story of its Operations
From Lenin to Gorbachev. Published in 1990, it is the only complete and
definitive history of the KGB at this time. As such, it demands inclusion in
this study. The second work is The Spy Who Saved the World: How a Soviet
Colonel Changed the Course of the Cold War by Jerrold L. Schecter and
Peter S. Deriabin, published in 1992. This is a detailed story of Col. Oleg
Penkovsky, easily the greatest Anglo-American espionage success of the
Cold War. Its counterintelligence significance rests on the fact that this su-
perb operation was run under the nose of the KGB in Moscow, an embar-
rassment of major significance to the Soviets.
21
Both books also make important contributions to the conspiracist
controversy. On the one hand, Gordievsky, from his unique position in the
KGB, was able to assure his British friends that Hollis, Mitchell, Liddell,
and Lord Rothschild were never Soviet agents. Equally important is a
definitive chapter in the Schecter-Deriabin book that makes clear that, for
the major period of his intelligence production, Penkovsky was not under
Soviet control, and his product was not and could not have been deception.
The controversy over whether he was bona fide (fueled largely by Angieton
and Golitsyn) had arisen after Penkovsky's arrest on 22 October 1962 and
was only put to rest within the CIA's Directorate of Operations in 1979 by a
long-overdue study of the case. That the Agency made important documen-
tary material available to Schecter and Deriabin so they could provide many
of the details to the public via their excellent book was a laudable action by
Dr. Robert Gates, who was DCI at the time.
22
Ill: The Literature
Chronology of Publications
1977 Orchids for Mother by Aaron Latham. A novel
about Angieton. Not recommended and not
reviewed.
1978 Honorable Men by William Colby. Chapter on
Angleton's dismissal is especially recommended,
but the book as a whole is not reviewed.
Legend: The Secret World of Lee Harvey Oswald
by Edward Jay Epstein. Not recommended.
Reviewed on page 25.
1979 The Man Who Kept the Secrets: Richard Helms
and the CIA by Thomas Powers. Not recom-
mended and not reviewed. Portions dealing with
counterintelligence are inaccurate.
The Climate of Treason: Five Who Spied for
Russia by Andrew Boyle. Recommended.
Reviewed on page 27.
1980 Wilderness of Mirrors by David Martin. A classic,
strongly recommended. Reviewed on page 29.
The Spike by Amaud de Borchgrave and Robert
Moss. A novel about Angieton. Not recom-
mended and not reviewed.
1981 Shadrin: The Spy Who Never Came Back by
Henry Hurt. Despite many errors, it is recom-
mended. Reviewed on page 30.
Their Trade Is Treachery by Chapman Pincher.
Recommended. Reviewed on page 33.
1982 For Services Rendered: James Leslie Bennett
and the RCMP Security Service by John
Sawatsky. Recommended. Reviewed on page 35.
A Matter of Trust: MI-5, 1945-72 by Nigel West.
Recommended but not reviewed.
1984 New Lies for Old by Anatole Golitsyn.
Recommended only for what Golitsyn said and
thought. Not reviewed.
23
1986 The FBI/KGB War: A Special Agent's Story by
Robert J. Lamphere and Tom Shachtman.
Strongly recommended. Reviewed on page 38.
1987 Spycatcher: The Candid Biography of a Senior
Intelligence Officer by Peter Wright with Paul
Greengrass. Recommended. Reviewed on page 42.
Molehunt: The Full Story of the Soviet Spy in
MI-5 by Nigel West. Recommended. Reviewed
on page 44.
1988 The Spycatcher Trial by Malcolm Turnbull.
Recommended. Reviewed on page 46.
The Spycatcher Affair by Chapman Pincher.
Recommended. Reviewed on page 48.
The Storm Birds: Soviet Post-War Defectors by
Gordon Brook Shepherd. Strongly recommended.
Reviewed on page 51.
Spy vs. Spy: The Shocking True Story of the
FBI's War Against Soviet Agents in America by
Ronald Kessler. Recommended. Reviewed on
page 57.
1989 Deception: The Invisible War Between the KGB
and the CIA by Edward Jay Epstein. Not recom-
mended. Reviewed on page 59.
Widows: Four American Spies, the Wives They
Left Behind and the KGB's Crippling of
American Intelligence by William R. Corson and
Susan and Joseph Trento. Definitely not recom-
mended and not reviewed in this study.
1990 KGB: The Inside Story of Its Operations From
Lenin to Gorbachev by Christopher Andrew and
Oleg Gordievsky. Strongly recommended.
Reviewed on page 61.
1991 Cold Warrior: James Jesus Angieton: The CIA's
Master Spy Hunter by Tom Mangold.
Recommended. Reviewed on page 64.
1992 Molehunt: The Secret Search for Traitors That
Shattered the CIA by David Wise.
Recommended. Reviewed on page 67.
The Spy Who Saved the World: How a Soviet
Colonel Changed the Course of the Cold War by
Jerrold L. Schecter and Peter S. Deriabin.
Recommended. Reviewed on page 69.
24
Reviews of Selected Books
Epstein, Edward Jay. Legend: The Secret World of
Lee Harvey Oswald. New York: The Reader's
Digest Press/McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1978
(382 pages).
Epstein is a bright and able writer who took his M.A. at Cornell and
his doctorate in government at Harvard. He made a name for himself with
his book Inquest: The Warren Commission and the Establishment of Truth,
his master's thesis at Cornell. It was one of the first serious works to expose
the shortcomings of that Commission. Epstein became aware of the Yuriy
Nosenko case through The Reader's Digest, and this led to his acquaintance
with James Angieton. Their association flourished, and Angieton became
Epstein's major source on Nosenko and the controversy surrounding his
defection. Eventually The Reader's Digest sponsored Epstein's research to
the tune of $500,000. Legend, the book that resulted, was a bestseller,
projecting the author to the forefront of those who were proponents of
Angleton's theories. Following its publication, Epstein wrote numerous arti-
cles for New York, Commentary, and other publications, mostlythough not
alwayssupportive of the Angieton theories.
Legend has two parts: the first is about Nosenko and Angleton's be-
lief that he was part of a KGB deception operation; the second is about
Oswald's sojourn in the Soviet Union following his service with the Marine
Corps in Japan. While in Japan the book suggests that Oswald acquired in-
formation about U-2 flights flown from the airfield at which he was sta-
tioned.
In brief, Epstein accepted Angleton's conclusion that "Nosenko was
a Soviet intelligence agent dispatched by the KGB expressly for the purpose
of delivering disinformation to the CIA, FBI, and the Warren Commission."
In this scheme, Oswald, the supposed lone assassin of President Kennedy,
probably was working for the KGB. (Nosenko said this was not true.)
Oswald, having defected to the USSR in 1959 and returned three years later,
had been living a "legend," a false biography concocted for him by the
KGB.
A central theme in both parts of the book, carefully stated and al-
ways present, was that the highest level of the Intelligence Community, and
certainly the CIA, was penetrated by a "mole" working for the KGB.
Although this mole had not been found by 1978, the best "proof" that one
existed, according to the book's argument, was Nosenko's assertion that he
knew of no penetration, thereby contradicting statements made by a
25
"Mr. Stone," who subsequently proved to be Anatole Golitsyn. Epstein thus
promoted the twin beliefs of deception and penetration by the KGB,
Angleton's theory that came to be called derisively "the monster plot."
Epstein's source notes state that his work is based on interviews
with Nosenko and retired CIA and FBI officers. He lists Gordon Stewart,
Admiral Turner, Richard Helms, James Angieton and members of his CI
Staff, William Sullivan and Sam Papich of the FBI, and others connected
with the Golitsyn and Nosenko cases. Epstein carefully camouflaged his
sources by never quoting them directly, but clearly a number of CIA
officers provided an immense amount of classified information. This leak-
ing about sensitive Soviet cases was on a scale the CIA had not experienced
before. But, because Epstein so cleverly refrained from pinpoint sourcing,
exactly which CIA or FBI officers provided classified information could not
be determined.
In 1989 the mystery was solved when Epstein published a second
book, Deception: The Invisible War Between the KGB and the CIA, which
again dealt with the contentious old cases, including Nosenko and Golitsyn.
Angieton, his major source, by then was dead, and Epstein revealed who his
informants had been. (See review of Deception, page .) Although the
presentation of these highly classified cases shocked most observers, within
a year the entire Nosenko case was opened to the public by the US House
Select Committee on Assassinations.
Legend sold well, and conspiracy buffs found it a welcome addition
to the growing literature on the Kennedy assassination. Many others,
however, found the book confusing, its claims extravagant, and its conclu-
sions unsupported by evidence. One of the chief critics, George Lardner of
The Washington Post, wrote: "What Epstein has written . . . is a fascinating,
important, and essentially dishonest book. Fascinating because it offers new
information about Oswald, about the KGB, and about the CIA. Dishonest
because it pretends to be objective, because it is saddled with demonstrable
errors and inexcusable omissions, because it assumes the KGB always
knows what it is doing while the CIA does not. It is paranoid. It is naive."
Nevertheless, Legend unquestionably set the tone for the debate that
subsequently ensued in the media about the Nosenko affair. It gave
Angieton and his supporters an advantage by putting their argument
adroitlyif dishonestlybefore the public first. Not until David Martin
responded with Wilderness of Mirrors was an opposing view presented
coherently.
26
Boyle, Andrew. The Climate of Treason. New
York: Hodder and Stoughton, 1979; revised edi-
tion, 1980 (574 pages).
Andrew Boyle's book (published in England under the title The
Fourth Man) is recommended, despite its numerous errors of fact and in-
terpretation, because it is a good read on the Cambridge spies. It also has
some slight historical significance: its publication on 5 November 1979
forced Prime Minister Thatcher only 10 days later to confirm that Sir
Anthony Blunt, a wartime officer with MI-5 and later Keeper of the
Queen's Pictures, had been a Soviet agent. In the original edition, Boyle
used the codename "Maurice" (taken from an E. M. Forster novel about a
homosexual) to disguise the identity of Blunt and avoid legal complications.
Hints and pub gossip for years had referred to a senior British official,
usually described as homosexual, as a member of the Cambridge group of
spies who had yet to be identified publicly. The Official Secrets Acta
powerful force preventing disclosure of the truth by serving or retired
British intelligence officersprevented absolute confirmation of the
rumors.
The Official Secrets Act has no authority in the United States,
however, and in 1978 Boyle went there to continue his research and to talk
with James Angieton. Neither in his book nor at any time before his death
from cancer in 1988 did Boyle ever admit to receiving classified informa-
tion from Angieton. Despite this, many indicators in the book, especially in
the chapters on Philby and "The Fifth Man," strongly suggest his influence.
Angieton probably also provided some conclusive evidence about Blunt.
From his past position as CIA chief of counterintelligence, he knew about
Blunt's confession from the British services. Because senior FBI counterin-
telligence officers also held such knowledge, Boyle may have received such
sensitive information from more than one American source.
In addition to exposing Blunt, The Climate of Treason is good social
and political history; it is packed with information on the political climate
of the times and provides a detailed review of the Cambridge spies from
Burgess and Mclean through Blunt and Philby. Despite certain drawbacks, it
provides an excellent account of this unusual group. (Only John Caimcross,
now identified as "The Fifth Man," remains to be treated in detail in open
literature.) It is far superior to John Costello's long-winded Mask of
Treachery (William Morrow and Company; New York, NY, 1988), which
runs off the rails with its conclusion that "The Fifth Man" was Guy
27
Liddell, a distinguished MI-5 officer whose career extended from the early
1920s until 1956. Authorities on every hand have denounced this allegation,
and it degrades the credibility of Costello's work overall.
The Boyle work, however, suffers from a grotesque and inexplicable
error, which may confirm his association with Angieton and the latter's con-
tribution to the book in terms other than the revelation about Blunt. Chapter
nine, entitled "Enter The Fifth Man," rambles on for 40 pages describing in
elliptical terms an atomic scientist who was a double agent informant some-
how controlled by James Angieton (invariably referred to as "brilliant" and
"penetrating"). The scientist was British, had been in the British Embassy
about the time of Maclean's tour in Washington, and was codenamed
"Basil."'
Because of the implications, journalists searched frantically for
Basil's identity. Boyle refused to supply it, claiming it was the responsibil-
ity of the Americans, who also knew his identity. Eventually, the press dis-
covered that a Dr. Wilfrid Basil Mann had been in the British Embassy
during the period Philby and Burgess were there. Dr. Mann had remained in
America after that tour, had become an American citizen in 1959, and was
working at the National Bureau of Standards. The press contacted him at his
home in Chevy Chase, Maryland, but Mann denied emphatically that he was
Basil and, rather tardily, the American authorities allowed that he was a
loyal American citizen. Most reporters missed the essential ingredient of the
story, that James Angieton and Dr. Mann had been friends at least since the
period when he and Philby were in Washington together. Puzzled, the press
grudgingly backed away from the controversy.
In 1982 Dr. Mann produced his own brief book on the issue entitled
Was There a Fifth Man? in which he details his career as a scientist and
proves convincingly that Boyle's allegations were nonsense. We now know
conclusively that the Fifth Man (if we can really believe Golitsyn's asser-
tion about a "Ring of Five") was John Caimcross, who was not an atomic
scientist.
So where did Boyle get his idea about Basil as the Fifth Man?
Neither he nor Angieton, both now dead, ever divulged anything further on
the question, and the full truth will probably never be known. If Dr. Mann
has suspicions, he has kept them to himself. Because Angieton was his
friend for many years, Mann will probably not speculate in a fashion that
would be degrading to Angleton's memory. Whatever the case, unsubstan-
tiated claims about Basil's identity tend to downgrade the credibility of
Boyle's work. The claims were false and, in any case, the issue was
peripheral to the main story.
' in later editions, while Boyle abandoned his codename "Maurice" for Bluntthere no longer being
any need to continue the fictionhe retained the mysterious "Basil" but provided no further elucida-
tion
28
In an interview with this writer in February 1992, Dr. Mann stated
that Boyle had never contacted him in advance and had not apologized for
the distress and embarrassment he had caused after the story was proved
false. Strong evidence indicates that Angieton told Boyle stories about
Mann but never provided the details, thus leaving a false impression on this
gullible journalist, who should have checked his facts.
Martin, David C. Wilderness of Mirrors. New
York: Harper and Row, 1980 (228 pages).
This is the best and most informed book written about CIA opera-
tions against the Soviet target during the 1950s and 1960s. It includes a
penetrating critique of two of the most prominent CIA officers involved,
William K. Harvey and James Angieton. Citing interviews with retired CIA
officers, material acquired under the Freedom of Information Act, and open
sources, including evidence derived from the House Committee Hearings on
Assassination, Martin crowds an exciting and generally accurate story into
228 pages.
During his research for the book, Martin became convinced that,
while Harvey was an important figure, Angieton was the subject around
whom major controversy swirled; furthermore, substantial evidence indi-
cated that he had damaged CIA severely (especially its counterintelligence
operations) and that his forced resignation by CIA Director William Colby
had been necessary and long overdue. After his dismissal, Angieton con-
tinued a guerrilla action against the Agency, the new CI Staff, and Colby,
launching a minor propaganda campaign which he fueled with calculated
leaks, playing one journalist against another.
Martin did not name his sources, footnote the book, or provide a
bibliography and other academic paraphernalia. In his foreword he noted
that Angieton was one of his principal sources and that he " . . . was a mar-
velous education in the ways of the CIA. Over time, he explained to me its
organization, its personnel, its modus operandi, and its internal rivalries." It
was from Angieton, Martin continues, that he first heard some of the more
colorful stories about Bill Harvey. When Martin called Harvey, however, the
latter always hung up.
Angieton refused to continue his cooperation after learning that
Martin was in touch with Clare Edward Petty, who had become suspicious
of Angleton's motives when working for him and had begun to speculate
that perhaps Angieton was the mole for whom the Agency searched. It ap-
pears likely that Petty generously contributed information about his former
29
boss, the molehunt, the Golitsyn-Nosenko controversy, and many other sub-
jects covered in the book. Martin identifies few other ex-CIA sources,
although he claims they were legion.
The book was well received by almost every reviewer, sold out
quickly, and is now a collector's item. Many readers found it especially in-
teresting because the enigmatic Angieton had become a well-known figure
by 1980. Epstein's Legend had painted him as a counterintelligence genius
wrongly dismissed at the height of the Cold War, an act many observers
hinted was close to treasonable.
Martin took a different tack, revealing Angieton as self-centered,
ambitious, and paranoid, with little regard for his Agency colleagues or for
simple common sense. Epstein, the lone critic of the book, responded by
writing a long review for The New York Times Book Review that was filled
with vituperative comments, loose charges, and what some might consider
character assassination. Angieton himself entered the fray with a three-page
public statement denouncing Martin and accusing him of having stolen his
phrase "Wilderness of Mirrors."
6
Hurt, Henry. Shadrin: The Spy Who Never Came
Back. New York: The Reader's Digest
Press/McGraw Hill, 1981 (301 pages).
Henry Hurt was a freelance writer and researcher for The Reader's
Digest when he met Edward J. Epstein. He assisted Epstein on the research
for Legend and was influenced by his theories on intelligence matters,
which were derived from Angieton. In 1979, Hurt met Ewe Shadrin, the
wife of the Soviet defector who disappeared in Vienna in December 1975
while on a mission for the FBI and CIA. Soon thereafter, Hurt met Ewe's
aggressive young lawyer, Richard Copaken, and from this association a plan
developed for Hurt to write an article for The Reader's Digest about Ewe's
missing husband. The article rapidly grew into a book for the Digest under
the direction of Fulton Oursler, a rightwing editor and an enthusiastic sup-
porter of Angieton.
Copaken took Hurt in hand and put him in touch with a number of
people associated with the Shadrin case, including several FBI officers.
Epstein introduced him to Angieton, who apparently facilitated a surprise
visit by Hurt to Golitsyn at the latter's hideaway in upstate New York (an
"Angieton had actually lifted the term, without attribution, from "Gerontion," a poem by T. S Eliot.
Martin later said he had heard Angieton use it in the midnight sessions and, discerning no copyright,
had appropriated it as the title of his book.
30
event that rattled Golitsyn, forcing CIA to move him to a new location in
the south for security reasons). When Hurt's book was published in 1981,
the mystery of Shadrin's disappearance remained unsolved. Copaken and
Mrs. Shadrin were frustrated and confused by seeming US Government in-
difference to their case, although in fact the agencies concerned were doing
everything possible to extract information from the largely uncommunica-
tive Soviets. Then Vitali Yurchenko in 1985 defected to the CIAalbeit
brieflyand in his debriefing asserted that the KGB had killed Shadrin ac-
cidentally during his meeting with its agents in Vienna.
Nikolai Fedorovich Artamonov (Shadrin) was bom in 1922 in the
USSR. He chose the Soviet Navy for a career and proved to be an excep-
tional officer, a man of high intellect, great charm, and wide interests. With
advanced training in nuclear missiles, he was at age 27 the youngest des-
troyer captain in the Soviet Navy and obviously was destined for top com-
mand. In 1959 his ship was stationed in Gdynia, Poland, supporting a
training program for Indonesian naval officers. There Artamonov met and
fell in love with Ewe Gora, a young dentistry graduate from an anti-
Communist Polish family. Marriage seemed impossible, given the Navy's
restrictions and the antipathy of Ewe's parents for all Soviets, so he pro-
posed defection. She accepted, and in a daring and dangerous escape they
crossed the Baltic to Sweden in a commandeered naval launch.
He came to America under CIA auspices and proved a gold mine to
the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI). Under their new identity bearing the
name Shadrin, Nick and Ewe made remarkable progress. He earned an M.A.
and a Ph.D. in engineering; she opened a successful dental practice. They
made many friends, mostly among high-ranking intelligence officials. But
then problems developed. Because ONI could not get him the necessary
security clearance for higher level work, Shadrin finally was assigned to a
unit of defectors serving as translators in the new Defense Intelligence
Agency (DIA). He understandably was distressed.
This situation changed radically in 1966 when a KGB officer
("Igor" in the book) arrived on an official assignment in Washington.
Hurt's account of Shadrin's association with a complex operation that en-
sued is much degraded because the author was forced to build his case
wholly on verbal testimony. Nevertheless, he managed to collect considera-
ble information and had help from Copaken's aggressive investigation.
Several FBI officers apparently told Ewe Shadrin and her lawyer more than
they should have. The Angleton-Epstein roles emerge in the portion dealing
with Igor's background and his bona fides.
Throughout the book, Hurt flays the Agency and the FBI for having
allowed Shadrin to proceed with his mission in Vienna, a city where the
KGB could control the situation. It was an admitted gamble that had
31
succeeded in previous cases, and Shadrin was willing to proceed. Hurt in-
troduces the issue of Igor's credibility, questioning whether the operation
should have been undertaken when there were so many questions about the
risks involved. The author describes Igor's credentials as resting to some
degree on two defectors he regards as phony: (Fedora, a KGB agent who
had worked for the FBI) and Nosenko (sweeping aside as irrelevant the
Agency's acceptance of Nosenko's bona fides). Hurt describes Epstein's
Legend as his main source for questioning Nosenko's authenticity, but he
also cites an FBI study done in 1980, which, he claims, concluded Fedora
was a false defector.
Readers of Shadrin should bear in mind that Hurt was attempting to
generate maximum publicity for Ewe Shadrin to improve her leverage with
officialdom. As a result, the book totally disregards the issue of Igor's per-
sonal security. If Igor was genuine, his security should have been para-
mount, and he should never have been mentioned.
Hurt apparently never understood, or refused to believe, that Igor
had been a source of valuable counterintelligence information; one of his
leads caused the apprehension of a long-term KGB spy who had done enor-
mous damage to American interests. Although Igor had been mentioned in
American press articles as early as 1978, the source of the leak had not been
identified, and the cases derived from his information were still being deve-
loped. The book forcefully propelled the Shadrin case and the mysterious
Igor into the public's consciousness. What action, if any, the Soviets subse-
quently took toward Igor is unknown to this writer, but if he suffered im-
prisonment or death at the hands of the KGB, Hurt and his allies bear a
heavy responsibility.
Hurt also exaggerates what he terms Agency incompetence and bun-
gling in the Shadrin case, assigning guilt roughly in the following order, to
Colby; George Kalaris, Angleton's successor as head of the CI Staff; and
Len McCoy, Kalaris's deputy. He cites lack of surveillance in Vienna and
the failure to notify Washington immediately when Shadrin's absence was
discovered. Much of the blame he puts on Cynthia Hausmann, Shadrin's
case officer in Vienna, whom he accuses of being distant and insensitive to
Ewe Shadrin when Nick was found to be missing. Most experts agree that
full surveillance was of doubtful utility in this case and that an immediate
cable to Washington would have been of little help. Under the circum-
stances, Hausmann's cautious and restrained conduct seems laudable. Hurt's
outrage on these points is both naive and absurd.
Shadrin reflects the influence of Angieton but accords him a secon-
dary role. Our ignorance of Igor's fate abides. Perhaps in this new age of
dispensation in Moscow we may one day receive the answer.
32
Pincher, Chapman. Their Trade Is Treachery.
London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1981 (240
pages).
This book's importance is historical; it was the instrument that
forced Mrs. Thatcher to admit to Parliament that Sir Roger Hollis, former
Director General of MI-5, had been under investigation some years earlier
as a possible Soviet agent. The book's detailed exposition of the case
against Hollis and Graham Mitchell, his deputy, makes interesting reading
as an example of the "mole mania" that gripped senior officers in the
American and British intelligence and security services. These services now
accept that the case against the two men was circumstantial and that they
were innocent. The West also now has confirmation of that conclusion from
Oleg Gordievsky, a KGB defector. Other supporting data on this matter
have been received from retired KGB officers in Moscow.
Chapman Pincher had been a gadfly of the British Government for
years on intelligence and defense matters in his position as a senior reporter
for Lord Beaverbrook's Daily Express. At the time this book appeared, there
was some reason to believe James Angieton was responsible for leaking in-
formation to the author about the Hollis and Mitchell cases (Angieton had
known about them at CIA as Chief, CI Staff) but Pincher denied it.
Nevertheless, he lends credence to this suspicion on page two by noting that
Mrs. Thatcher had been warned about the explosiveness of the Hollis case
by Jonathan Aitken, a Tory MP and son of the late Lord Beaverbrook.
Aitken claimed to have learned about Hollis from "former members of
MI-5, SIS and the CIA." On page three, Pincher wrote what sounds very
familiar to those acquainted with Angleton's practice of calculated leaks:
"The view of the loyal MI-5 officers who uncovered the evidence is that the
Russians had penetrated both the Security and Intelligence Services so
deeply, and for so long, that they not only neutralized them but effectively
ran them. I have established that this is also the view of senior officers of
the CIA, who had been alerted to the facts."
All of this, of course, is false. No senior CIA officer (except
Angieton) had accepted the case against Hollis, nor was the CIA about to
press Mrs. Thatcher for an investigation of the matter, as Pincher implies.
On the contrary, the firm view of CIA counterintelligence in 1980 was that
the case against Hollis was the work of a small group of retired British in-
telligence officers, including Peter Wright and Stephen de Mowbray. The
CIA officers to whom Pincher refers obviously were Angieton and a few of
his adherents, all of whom had been in retirement since 1974 or earlier and
had since been leading a vendetta against the new counterintelligence offi-
cials at CIA. The people Pincher cited regarded Arthur Martin, Wright, and
de Mowbray as allies in their battle to prove Golitsyn's charges of massive
penetration of the Western services.
33
Angieton, probably inspired by the revelations Mrs. Thatcher had
been forced to make about Blunt, decided in late 1979 to thrust himself into
the center of the Hollis controversy. He did this, according to Pincher, by
leaking information on the Hollis case to Aitken, who was then visiting
Washington. Angieton told Aitken he believed there would be a major in-
vestigation of MI-5 and MI-6. When Aitken asked why, the former coun-
terintelligence chief replied he would think of some way of answering the
question.
When Aitken returned to London he found a letter from Angieton
awaiting him which advised him to talk with Arthur Martin, formerly of
MI-5, and Christopher Phillpotts, formerly chief of MI-6 counterintelli-
gence. Angieton had written Martin about his talk with Aitken and probably
wrote Phillpotts as well. Martin and Phillpotts apparently told Aitken much
of the story about the Hollis and Mitchell investigations; Aitken in turn
used this information in his "warning" letter to Mrs. Thatcher. Aitken was
close to Pincher and also told him the story, including the part about his
personal warning to Mrs. Thatcher through a "confidential and personal"
letter. Angleton's role was made clear to Pincher, who in turn referred to
him in the book.
Thus, Pincher knew a great deal, but as yet he did not have the
whole story. The massive amount of inside information in his book came
from another source. In September 1980, Pincher writes, Lord Rothschild
introduced him to Peter Wright, and Pincher spent an evening debriefing
him on a number of intelligence issues, especially the Hollis and Mitchell
cases. Later they reached a financial agreement, and Pincher flew to
Australia where he could debrief Wright at his leisure. It was an astonishing
lode. Pincher could hardly grasp his good fortune.
7
He became wholly con-
vinced that Hollis had been a spy. Two years later he produced a second
book on the subject, Too Secret Too Long, which sold well, but its premise
was not proved. Then two years after that, Wright took center stage himself
with the publication of his own book, Spycatcher. It was banned in Britain,
but the circus trial in Australia prevented its being banned there. As a result,
sales of this otherwise ordinary book skyrocketed and overnight made
Wright a multimillionaire.
The truth about Angleton's contribution to the Hollis problem was
not revealed until the famous Spycatcher trial in Australia in 1986, when a
copy of Aitken's letter was submitted to the court as evidence. Angieton
was certainly the instrument by which Aitken learned of the Hollis affair,
and Pincher got that information secondhand from Aitken. But the details
came from Wright, who gave Pincher his information in return for money.
7
Later, in Too Secret Too Long. Pincher exclaimed, "To someone as obsessively curious as I am about
the secret services, it was like being led into Aladdin's cave with nuggets and jewels sparkling every-
where' "
34
Sawatsky, John. For Services Rendered: Leslie
James Bennett and the RCMP Security Service.
New York and Toronto: Doubleday and Company,
1982 (239 pages).
This book might well have been titled "James Bennett: A
Counterintelligence Tragedy" because that is what it describes. Bennett's
fate is a cautionary tale that should be read carefully by every officer deal-
ing with security and counterintelligence. Sawatsky's book is also one of
the best on the Angieton era, although it deals with only one slice of it.
Golitsyn plays a role in the book, but Sawatsky does not otherwise touch
upon the major controversies that plagued the counterintelligence scene at
the time.
He did interview some CIA retired officers but collected the bulk of
his evidence from Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) personnel who
were involved in the Bennett case. He concentrates entirely on the Canadian
scene and allows few distractions from the central story, a vivid and truthful
account of the destruction of an excellent civilian officer of the RCMP
Security Service. Accounts in the official CIA Counterintelligence Center
(CIC) files verify Sawatsky's story.
Sawatsky is a Canadian journalist who cut his teeth on intelligence
and security affairs with an earlier book called Men In The Shadows, a
general account of the RCMP Security Service. Shortly thereafter, Ian
Adams, a Canadian author, published a novel that was a thinly disguised
story of the alleged role of Leslie James Bennett as a Soviet spy. A senior
civilian official in the RCMP for many years, all in counterintelligence
work against Soviet Bloc services, Bennett had been forced out of the
service in 1972, supposedly on health grounds. After a brief period in South
Africa, he settled in Australia. When the Adams book appeared, Bennett
struck back at its innuendo with a libel suit. In the ensuing trial, much about
the highly secret case became public knowledge.
Armed with these details, Sawatsky went after the rest of the story.
It is safe to assume that Bennett told Sawatsky his side of the story and
provided the names of friends who could fill in additional detail and color.
It also seems likely that, as Sawatsky pursued his investigation, those who
believed Bennett guilty were ready to tell their story, and those who
preferred to believe him innocent were equally ready to talk. This kind of
argument and counterargument, stimulating each side to blurt out more than
it had originally intended, is perfect for the investigative journalist.
Sawatsky had a field day. Former RCMP personnel talked freely and in
35
great detail. The result is an astonishing book that reads like security serv-
ice files, except that it is livelier and better written.
Readers of books about counterintelligence in this period will find a
common thread running through them, including Sawatsky's book: the be-
lief intensely held by a small group of Western counterintelligence officers
in the 1960s and 1970s that the Soviets had penetrated their services and
that the penetration explained why things had gone wrong. This conviction
rationalized many otherwise inexplicable anomalies and accounted for the
failures of their services in the struggle against Soviet Bloc intelligence.
On pages 265-66, Sawatsky tells how suspicion fell on Bennett
when Clare E. Petty, one of Angleton's counterintelligence officers, told
some stories out of school, the kind of airy theorizing in which Petty
specializedextreme speculation unsupported by fact. It was enough to ig-
nite a conflagration. When Angieton learned of Petty's indiscretion, he was
furious but did not go to the Mounties and advise caution. Instead, he
poured gasoline on the fire by suggesting that the RCMP consult Golitsyn.
It was to be Golitsyn's last big case, and he took full advantage of it. Only a
year earlier he had visited Ottawa and stayed at the Bennett home discuss-
ing cases for hours, an event Bennett thought had made them close friends.
Now the defector declared Bennett to be a KGB mole. This was all the
RCMP needed to hurtle off to disaster.
Bennett was an outsider, a civilian employee and thus something of
a rarity in the RCMP. He had been in the counterintelligence branch for two
decades, had access to everything, and was not the most popular of men. A
Welshman who entered the RCMP in the early 1950s, he had raised several
generations of commissioned and noncommissioned Mounties, trying to in-
still in them the discipline, perseverance, objectivity, and dedication that
counterintelligence work requires.
In the course of his career, it is safe to say Bennett made some ene-
mies. A dry, dyspeptic man with a fierce dedication to his work, he was
known to arrive regularly at the office at seven in the morning and not leave
until seven at night, an addiction to duty that was later to be used against
him. He had a biting tongue and could be acidly critical of young, raw
recruits from the Canadian prairies with nothing more than a high school
education whom he was trying to mold into counterintelligence officers. In
the long run, although he was widely respected (nowhere more than with
the foreign services in liaison with the RCMP), some of those who passed
through the counterintelligence section of the security service hated him.
This was probably an unspoken factor in the accusations against him.
36
Despite its enormous complexities, Sawatsky tells well the story of
the investigation, the confrontation, the interrogation, and the ultimate deci-
sion that Bennett had to leave. It was a terrible, wrenching hour for the dis-
tinguished Director General of the Security Service, John K. Stames, when
he finally made that decision. Bennett, never in good health, was put out of
the RCMP on a medical discharge. Stames himself left the security service
not long after, and within a few years the whole organization was closed
down, eventually to be replaced by a civilian service.
After Bennett's libel case made this scandal public, the Canadian
Government carried out its own inquiry. In 1980 the Solicitor General of
Canada, Mr. Francis Fox, told the House of Commons Committee on Justice
and Legal Affairs that "there was no evidence whatsoever that Mr. Bennett
was anything but a loyal Canadian citizen." Financial compensation for his
obvious loss of income plus his personal humiliation was not mentioned.
The incubus of Angieton still seemed to hover over the case. Bennett was
living in exile in Australia on a paltry medical pension when, in March
1993, the Canadian Government finally cleared him of the charges that he
was a Soviet spy. He subsequently received $140,000 as compensation.
It had been known for some time to insiders, however, that RCMP
Security Service counterintelligence analysts had very good reason to be-
lieve their service was penetrated. So much had gone wrong for which no
explanation could be found that the mole theory, even without its promotion
by Angieton and his adherents, became increasingly plausible. The believers
in penetration thus were right in this instance, except for one thing: they
suspected the wrong man. Because Bennett seemed to be the most probable
choice, for the reasons outlined in Sawatsky's book, the investigation was
launched. Powerful arguments were submitted against the idea that Bennett
was a Soviet agent, but, once the investigative machine had started, it
developed sufficient momentum so that other candidates apparently never
were even considered.
As Mangold's Cold Warrior reveals, after Angieton left CIA the
new team of CI Staff analysts, hard-nosed experienced professionals, more
inclined toward gritty work than long martini lunches, took a hard look at
the Bennett case and found it wanting. This revisionist view did not go
down well when presented to Ottawa, but gradually responsible officials in
the RCMP began to back away from their conviction that Bennett was a spy.
Mangold concludes his Bennett chapter by describing the revelation of the
penetrator's true identity, whom Mangold codenamed "TANGO."
TANGO, we now knowthanks to a well-documented Canadian
Broadcasting Company (CBC-TV) television program which aired in March
1993was a deceased RCMP Security Service sergeant named Gilles
37
Brunet. The son of an assistant commissioner of the RCMP, Brunet had
lived hard and fast in Montreal nightclubs and foreign resorts, far over-
spending his modest salary. Despite sound evidence supporting his role as
Soviet spy (the penetration the Mounties thought was Bennett), legal action
was never brought against Brunet before he died in 1984. Except for
Mangold's brief reference to the case, the issue might have ended there had
it not been for the CBC-TV program, which marshaled impressive evidence
to support the charge that Brunet, not Bennett, was the spy. The CBC-TV
program concluded with an interview in Moscow with Gen. Oleg Kalugin,
the retired chief of KGB counterintelligence. Kalugin confirmed, but did not
identify anyone by name, that the KGB had a very valuable mole in the
RCMP Security Service. Almost certainly the mole was Brunet.
Lamphere, Robert J., and Shachtman, Tom. The
FBI/KGB War: A Special Agent's Story. New
York: Random House, 1986 (320 pages)
Robert Lamphere is a stubborn and determined man who fights to
win. He demonstrated this trait in his battle with the National Security
Agency (NSA) over whether he could tell the story about breaking the KGB
ciphers during World War II and the resulting consequences of that achieve-
ment in the struggle against Soviet espionage and subversion. NSA, with
strong support from its British counterpart, GCHQ, had steadfastly denied
him permission to reveal from his personal experience how effective the
material derived from the break had been.
In retrospect, NSA and GCHQ were foolish to refuse Lamphere's
initial request, but the story had been closely held, and it was difficult to
alter an attitude that had prevailed over four decades. Lamphere understood
this, and his narrative reveals only the barest details. The FBI probably
pressured NSA to yield on the issue since the Bureau helped Lamphere,
who had been one of its special agents, by allowing him access to some of
his memoranda and special reports. Lamphere persisted because the story is
central to much of his book.
He had entered the FBI fresh from law school in 1941 and in due
course was assigned to the New York field office. There he worked on the
Soviet espionage squad and experienced firsthand the benefits of the infor-
mation obtained from the first two defectors, Igor Gouzenko in Canada and
Elizabeth Bentley in the United States. By the end of the war, he was fully
occupied with Soviet cases and well on his way to becoming an expert in
Soviet espionage. Especially interesting are his accounts of meetings with
such oldtime Communist luminaries as Ruth Fischer and Hede Masing, who
38
gave him vital information when Lamphere was helping the prosecuting at-
torney in Gerhard Eisler's trial. Lamphere's autobiography is such good his-
tory one wishes for more detail on many of the cases he describes, although
that can usually be obtained from other accounts.
In the fall of 1947, William K. Harvey, then a major figure in the
Soviet section of the CIA's Washington field office, arranged to have
Lamphere transferred from New York to the nation's capital. Harvey had
been pushed out of the FBI before joining the CIA. What Lamphere does
not say, but what is important, is that Harvey's transfer gave CIA its first
knowledge of NSA's breaking of the Soviet ciphers. Before that, the FBI
had restricted knowledge of the break to its British counterpart, MI-5,
which, with NSA's agreement, was informed by GCHQ.
A short time later, MI-6 also was given the information because of
an investigation into an espionage lead relating to someone in the Foreign
Office. The investigation occasionally required coordination in Washington,
so it was necessary to consult Peter Dwyer, the MI-6 representative, then
acting for both MI-5 and MI-6 in the British Embassy. Thus, Dwyer's
successor, H. A. R. "Kim" Philby, was indoctrinated into the compart-
mented operation. Lamphere states that Philby immediately gave the pre-
cious secret to his Soviet masters (true) but then goes on to say Sir Roger
Hollis had given it earlier (not proved).
This egregious error comes from Lamphere's uncritical acceptance
of Chapman Pincher's unsubstantiated judgment in Their Trade Is
Treachery that Hollis was a Soviet agent. Lamphere did not have the benefit
of Gordievsky's knowledge on the subject, but he ought to have given some
value to the word of Prime Minister Thatcher, who stated to the British
Parliament that the official investigation had found no evidence to support
the allegation against Hollis. Lamphere even gets wrong the period when
Hollis was Director General, giving it as 1952-56 when it actually was
1953-65. Because James Angieton is credited with having critically read the
book, it is astonishing that this error went uncorrected. In fact, although
Lamphere cannot be blamed for being ignorant of the event, knowledge of
the break of KGB ciphers reached the Soviets in 1948 from an Army
Security Agency (ASA) officer, William Weisband, two years before Philby
confirmed the information.
This otherwise excellent history tells the fascinating story of how
the KGB code was broken. A brilliant American, Meredith Gardner, then
working at ASA's headquarters Arlington Hall, made the initial break-
through. When Lamphere arrived from New York, the decrypted breakouts
were few and not well understood. He asked permission to work on them
and in this way met Gardner. They became a formidable team.
39
From this beginning flowed information of great value to the FBI in
its effort to understand and identify the myriad Soviet agent networks then
at work in the United States. Lamphere saw the potential of this product and
developed it for use without endangering the source. His superiors had the
good sense to comprehend this development; even J. Edgar Hoover seems to
have allowed this section to operate without his usual unhelpful intrusions.
While Gardner and Lamphere were trying to make use of the
decryptions against the Soviet networks, the CIA was just getting estab-
lished. Lamphere pulls no punches in describing how Hoover did his best to
hamper its development, even to the point of playing up to the British serv-
ices against the Agency. The author's approach to Hoover is refreshing. On
the one hand, he is frank in describing Hoover's endless playing of politics
and his tyrannical and often irrational administrative practices. On the other
hand, he respects the way Hoover guarded the Bureau's rights and managed
to keep it on an even keel despite sniping from many quarters. Lamphere
recognized the need for an intelligence service that would operate abroad"
and acknowledged the importance of the Bureau and the Agency working
together toward the same goal.
High on Lamphere's list of Hoover's vengeful actions was the way
he directed liaison with CIA. He put it entirely in the hands of a devoted
sycophant, Zeke de Loach, with the objective of obstructing the Agency
wherever possible. De Loach faithfully carried out this mission. Eventually
the respected and revered Sam Papich replaced him, but de Loach nonethe-
less continued to create difficulties. Lamphere makes no secret of his belief
that this was one of the most shameful and damaging of Hoover's many
transgressions, particularly because it happened when the closest counterin-
telligence cooperation was required to meet the demands placed on both
FBI and CIA by the burgeoning Cold War.
Reading Lamphere's stories about how the Bureau operated, one un-
derstands why the atmosphere there became slightly psychotic under
Hoover's leadership. An example was Hoover's handling of relations with
MI-5 on the Fuchs case. MI-5's William Skardon had broken Fuchs and ob-
tained his confession that he worked for the Soviets, but many aspects of
his American Communist associations remained unanswered. Hoover
wanted Fuchs questioned by an FBI officer. MI-5 replied that the Attorney
General of Great Britain could not permit this while Fuchs's appeal was be-
ing considered. Hoover flew into a rage but could not budge London.
The appeal finally was denied, and MI-5 indicated the way was
clear for the FBI to question Fuchs. Lamphere's superior selected him to do
the debriefing. Hoover intervened at the last moment with instructions that
Hugh Clegg, a Bureau officer in liaison with MI-5 during the war, should be
present as a watchdog over the British, Lamphere, and the London FBI
40
representative, John Cimperman. This was an unpleasant situation because
the British disliked Clegg from their wartime experience with him, and
Lamphere resented him tagging along.
Hoover's intervention produced a great deal of needless acrimony,
but in the end cool heads carried the day; Skardon and Cimperman kept
Clegg in the background and let Lamphere do the questioning. It was
Lamphere's skill that brought the trip to a successful conclusion; during the
debriefing he got Fuchs to identify Harry Gold as his major contact in the
atom spy ring.
Lamphere continued to manage the exploitation of the decrypted
KGB material, including the clues that led to the eventual arrest of Ethel
and Julius Rosenberg. The cipher material was supplemented by valuable
information from defector sources such as Gouzenko and especially former
American Communists including Bentley, Budenz, and Chambers.
Lamphere was allowed on occasion to lecture CIA training courses
(perhaps without Hoover's knowledge), which must have been of immense
help to the young Agency, then only beginning to learn the arcane art of
counterintelligence. Another example of a behind-the-scenes cooperative ef-
fort was Lamphere's plan, formulated with James Angieton, to kidnap in
Israel a vaunted Soviet spy, Joseph Katz. The plan was discovered by
Hoover, who put an immediate end to it. Later, when Katz resided in
Britain, the CIA and FBI cooperated on a scheme to debrief him in London
(with MI-5 knowledge and help). Katz, however, remained uncooperative
and took his secrets with him to the grave.
Although this book has a few errors and the story has perhaps been
gilded a bit by Lamphere, it nevertheless remains one of the best histories
of US counterintelligence. It is especially valuable for its coverage of the
intense activity that followed the breakthrough on KGB ciphers and the
defectors. These developments provided conclusive evidence that the war-
time Soviet ally had been spying in the United States for two decades and
had in fact accelerated this activity during the war.
Despite the excitement and satisfaction he derived from such impor-
tant work, Lamphere eventually became fed up with Hoover's irrational
management, and in 1955 he left the Bureau for a successful career with the
Veterans Administration. He later had yet another successful career in busi-
ness with a major insurance company. A man of many parts and obvious
ability, Lamphere has written a book that should be required reading for
counterintelligence officers.
41
Wright, Peter. Spycatcher: The Candid
Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer.
New York: Viking Penguin, Inc., 1987 (390
pages).
Peter Wright's Spycatcher, although filled with errors, exaggera-
tions, bogus ideas, and self-inflation, is one of the outstanding works in the
field of intelligence literature to appear in the last three decades. It covers
matters that have been explored before and repeats much that is already
known to the well-informed intelligence officer, but it is so full of bombast,
the joy of the hunt, English eccentricities, and factual data that it must be
required reading for anyone interested in intelligence.
When it was published, the British Government was driven to such
irrational distraction that it initiated a series of foolhardy and hopeless
countermeasures. These actions failed to stop the book's publication, en-
sured the British Government's embarrassment, and made the author
whom the government had hoped to punisha wealthy man. Tom Mangold
affirms that Wright told him the book in 1989 had brought him some
Australian $2 million (about US $3 million). Recently, adding insult to in-
jury, the European Community High Court ordered the British Government
to pay damages to two London newspapers which had been prevented from
carrying excerpts of the book.
By any standard, Peter Wright is a genuine character who could
have flourished only in England. In its present nonimperial status, in-
tegrated into Europe and without the menace of the Nazis or Bolsheviks,
this kind of eccentric will probably never emerge again. But anyone who
ever heard Wright in full flight delivering a lecture on the pre-World War II
Comintern apparat in the United Kingdom or dilating on his interrogation of
Blunt and his comintern/Communist friends will never forget the ex-
perience. He had an astonishing memory for arcane facts, and his mere
presencewith his patriarchal countenance, his bald pate with its crown of
wispy white hair, and the curious defect of speech (between a lisp and stam-
mer)made a strong impression on the most jaded observer.
There are three parts to the Wright story, all of equal importance in
understanding what happenedfrom his first peddling of information to
Pincher, to the infamous Granada television show in which he first spilled
his secrets to millions of viewers, to writing Spycatcher with the help of
Paul Greengrass. The first part covers Wright's obsession, beginning with
Golitsyn's 1963 visit to England, that the British services, particularly MI-5,
were penetrated by the Russians. In this belief he was supported and en-
couraged within his own service by his mentor Arthur Martin, who at that
42
time was considered the senior counterespionage expert in MI-5. Later he
began an association with Angieton, who also encouraged him in his obses-
sive ideas about penetration. After Martin's removal in 1965, the leadership
of the mole hunters fell upon Wright, a mantle he willingly accepted.
But then other views began to be heard: the Mitchell case sputtered
out; Hollis retired and, with his departure, the immediacy of action tended
to decline; Golitsyn's stock within the British services began to fall and
mole hunt fever began to recede. Suddenly Wright found himself alone with
his convictions. He tried everything to make members of the new leadership
listen, but they turned a deaf ear. The old man and his obsession became an
embarrassment. The problem then was how to ease him out of the service.
The second aspect of Wright's story is the man himself. He was
never a popular figure in MI-5, especially with senior management. He was
a scientist (actually he had studied agriculture at Oxford) whose application
of his special discipline to intelligence work did not always win acceptance
by his colleagues. When he allied with Martin, another nonestablishment
outsider, and the two began pressing for a more aggressive resistance to
Soviet intelligence in the United Kingdom, they were hailed by young
junior officers as heroes. In the process, however, they antagonized many of
the conservative oldtimers, and especially the top management, Roger
Hollis and Graham Mitchell.
After Golitsyn's visit and the investigation of Mitchell began, the
division between the followers of Martin and Wright and those who ques-
tioned the penetration idea became more pronounced. Wright was even
more isolated after Martin's departure, but the new Director General,
Furnival Jones, continued to allow him considerable leeway. Nevertheless,
as he neared retirement, he was virtually isolated. Many felt his obsessive
mole hunt was distracting the service from its primary tasks as well as
threatening the cohesion and morale of the service. All of this shook
Wright's confidence, and he began to feel an outcast.
A prudent observer, noting so many skeletons in MI-5's closet
(Blunt, Mitchell, Hollis, for example) and that Wright was a retiree of such
mercurial temperament and precarious financial status, would have advised
some effort to ensure that he left the service in a favorable state of mind.
Instead the old man was denied a sizable portion of his retirement annuity
to which he was clearly entitled, thus making certain he left with a burning
grievance."
"Before entering MI-5, Wright had worked about a dozen years as a research scientist for the Royal
Navy It was agreed that this service would count as time in establishing the amount of his pension
Upon his retirement, however, Wright was told that, for some arcane bureaucratic reason, Ml-5 could
not incorporate the earlier service in determining his final pension sum When he complained this was
a violation of trust, he was waved off The sum he received was unbelievably small
43
In desperation Wright finally was forced to move from England to
the Australian island of Tasmania, where he hoped to establish a stud farm
that might prosper, and where conditions were better for his deteriorating
health. There he also was beyond the reach of the British Official Secrets
Act. At about this time, when his financial condition had become truly seri-
ous, a call came from Lord Rothschild precipitating events that were to
wound both Wright and the British Government. (Further details about those
events are provided in the review of Chapman Pincher's The Spycatcher
Affair.)
It can be argued that the rigid rule is that an officer does not break
an oath to which he has solemnly given his word, and that therefore what
Wright did was both morally repugnant and a criminal action. On the other
hand, the British Government and MI-5, by denying him his legitimate pen-
sion, had done Wright a wrong for which he had no recourse under the
secrecy arrangements in Britain. It should also be borne in mind that he was
a far-right, rock-hard Tory. That his own kind and MI-5 would so mutilate
him was a spiritual shock from which he never recovered. His actions from
that time forward were out of character, but at the trial he got his revenge.
As he descended from the witness box at the conclusion of his testimony,
Wright was heard to mutter, "That will fix the bastards."
West, Nigel. Molehunt: The Full Story of the
Soviet Spy in MI-5. London: Weidenfeld and
Nicholson, 1987 (208 pages).
Nigel West is the pseudonym of Rupert Alason, a Tory Member of
Parliament. His book covers the investigations by MI-5 into the Hollis and
Mitchell cases as well as the work of the "Fluency" committee. Because
West does not know the facts about Fluency, he exaggerates its effective-
ness. The work of the committee covered much ground but with few results.
Although it found no Soviet penetration of either MI-5 or MI-6, but several
MI-6 officers were forced to resign for reasons never explained. The book
also looks at the career of Guy Liddell, a distinguished MI-5 officer who re-
tired in 1953. Unlike John Costello {The Climate of Treason), West con-
cludes Liddell could not have been the "Fifth Man," this being written
before the Andrew-Gordievsky book identified John Caimcross as the one
who deserves that dubious title.
The most interesting part of Molehunt is West's commentary on the
Spycatcher trial in Sydney. He obviously took great delight in observing the
miserable situation in which his competitor, Chapman Pincher, found him-
self as the embarrassing story emerged of Wright's collusion with Pincher.
44
All the clever stories and coverups Pincher had created to protect the iden-
tity of his true source for Their Trade Is Treachery were suddenly exposed,
much to the delight of the public and all the journalists who had suffered
Pincher's scoops and inside stories. The trial exposed him as having con-
cocted a sordid deal to pay the old spycatcher a paltry sum for his informa-
tion which, converted into a book, had brought Pincher several hundred
thousand pounds.
Chapters six and seven cover the background to Pincher's relations
with Wright and Lord Rothschild, providing information not revealed in
either Pincher's or Turnbull's books. In particular. West reveals the degree
of knowledge that senior British intelligence officials, particularly in MI-5,
and the Cabinet Secretary possessed regarding Pincher's manuscript of
Their Trade Is Treachery. He also demonstrates that the illicit means by
which they acquired the manuscript tied their hands legally as regards
bringing action to prevent publication. This conundrum allowed Pincher's
book to appear, even though the top people in the British Government knew
its contents violated the Official Secrets Act. According to West, British in-
telligence authorities had analyzed the book's contents line by line and
deduced the source to be Wright. They confirmed this by discovering
Pincher's air tickets for his trip to Tasmania. That information, grudgingly
revealed during the Sydney trial, degraded the British Government's case in
trying to force an injunction against Wright's book, whereas Pincher's
earlier work had been allowed to go into print with no objection. These two
chapters are among the best in this well-researched and well-written book.
In his last chapter West again considers the issue of Soviet penetra-
tion of MI-5, emphasizing the belief (strongly held by Martin and Wright)
that MI-5 contained a mole from the wartime period up to perhaps the
mid-1960s. After a cursory examination of the most prominent suspects,
West settles on Mitchell as the most likely candidate. He makes a general
case, but his major effort emphasizes the paper Mitchell wrote for Prime
Minister Macmillan that, in effect, cleared Philby. The paper was replete
with errors and downplayed Philby's role in the case of the "missing
diplomats" (Burgess and Maclean), but this alone hardly makes the case
against Mitchell. West notes other minimal points about Mitchell, such as
his alleged dislike of defectors, but does not make a strong case against
him.
Gordievsky, in his book KGB: The Inside Story, cleared both Hollis
and Mitchell. Gen. Oleg Kalugin, former Chief of Counterintelligence in the
KGB, confirmed to this writer in 1992 that neither Hollis nor Mitchell had
worked for the KGB. It would be a kind gesture if the present Russian
45
Government would make an official statement to this effect, thus lifting
forever the shadow that remains for the relatives of these falsely accused
men. Mitchell himself was spared this last indignity from West; he died in
1985.
Turnbull, Malcolm. The Spycatcher Trial.
Richmond and Victoria: William Heinemann
Australia, 1988 (227 pages).
This book is a useful antidote to Chapman Pincher's The Spycatcher
Affair (subject of the next review). It is an entertaining and accurate account
of how a brash young Australian barrister destroyed the British
Government's effort to prevent Peter Wright from publishing Spycatcher,
his story about the alleged Soviet penetration of British intelligence and
security services.
The author of The Spycatcher Trial, Malcolm Turnbull, was that
barrister. He was 32 years old at the time of the trial, a legal circus that at-
tracted worldwide attention. Turnbull was educated in Australia and had
won a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford for two years, during which time he
was employed by the London Times. He married well socially in Australia
and had excellent political connections, which proved of immense help as
the case progressed.
A shrewd observer of human foibles and the fickleness of the me-
dia, Turnbull employed a number of stratagems to outwit the British legal
team, including outfitting Wright with a drover's hat in order to give him an
Australian character. (He also prudently got him Australian citizenship be-
fore the trial began.) Turnbull employed a shrewd English solicitor to help
him understand the British legal thicket and Paul Greengrass, Wright's
ghost writer, to provide insights on what had propelled Wright's activities of
recent years. Greengrass's role was especially important because Wright's
memory was failing, and he was inclined on occasion to change or em-
broider his story.
Peter Wright's Spycatcher had received more legal attention than
almost any other book of its kind in history. The trial involving its author in
Sydney, Australia, in 1986 represented an extraordinary nexus between the
secret security and intelligence services, the law, and the media. What be-
gan as an attempt by MI-5 to muzzle one of its former officers ended with
the British Government on trial in Australia.
46
In 1985, frustrated by his failure to persuade the British
Government to act against what he considered continued Soviet penetration
of the British intelligence and security services, Wright signed a contract
with Heinemann's of Australia to publish his dossier of "facts." He was
motivated largely by a desire for vengeance against his former employers
for what he considered their malicious refusal to give him his proper pen-
sion, but he was also hopeful of making enough money to keep his stud
farm afloat. (Wright had sampled the largess that came as his share of
Pincher's Their Trade Is Treachery, and he found it gratifying.) His incapac-
ity to write anything but the worst bureaucratic prose, however, led him to
hire Greengrass as his ghost writer.
Within weeks, news of the book leaked out, and the legal battle be-
gan. Prime Minister Thatcher, presumably on the advice of MI-5, pursued
Wright through the courts in Australia, Britain, and other parts of the world.
Wright, equally dogged and with the support of his publisher, remained de-
termined that his book should appear in print. When Turnbull took up the
case in early 1986, the betting odds were that Wright had a 1 -percent chance
of winning. The ensuing three-week trial in Sydney, in particular Turnbull's
brilliant cross-examination of British Cabinet secretary, Sir Robert
Armstrong, is the centerpiece of the book. The trial turned the case in
Wright's favor, and the attendant publicity made Spycatcher an international
best seller. Wright became a millionaire several times over.
For intelligence officers there is an especially compelling story
(pages 53-55) told concerning the use of the "old boy" network in a back-
door attempt to make the injunction watertight. An English friend told
Turnbull of the British Government's intention to request the Australian
Government's help in stopping publication of Wright's book. This was to be
done through intelligence links between the two countries. Through his po-
litical connections, Turnbull confirmed the truth of this story (which origi-
nated in a conversation between two senior British officials overheard in the
pissoir of the Garrick Club in London). Furthermore, the Australian
Security Intelligence Organization Australian (ASIO) and the Australian
Department of Defense were apparently keen to demonstrate their loyalty to
Britain and the Western intelligence "club." Turnbull fired off a letter to
Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke, Minister for External Affairs Bill
Hayden and others emphasizing that "Australia should not run to Mrs.
Thatcher's whistle; it should not protect Britain from the consequences of
its past crimes." It had the desired effect. Although Australia sided with
Britain in trying to stop the external publication of Wright's book,
Australian intervention thereafter was as innocuous as possible.
47
Turnbull provides a full and often amusing account of this
celebrated legal event. He explains Wright's motives in publishing and
those of the British Government in relentlessly pursuing the case. The story
could easily be the plot for a film as he recreates the drama of the trial that
caught the imagination of the world.
Pincher, Chapman. The Spycatcher Affair. New
York: St. Martin's Press, 1988 (305 pages).
First published in England in 1989 under the title The Web of
Deception, this book is one of three major works dealing with the
Spycatcher trial in Australia, the other two being Molehunt: The Full Story
of the Soviet Spy in MI-5 by Nigel West and The Spycatcher Trial by
Malcolm Turnbull. All three are of interest, but the Pincher book is required
reading to understand the hodgepodge of events that led to the trial.
Pincher was intimately involved with Wright in an earlier book
called Their Trade is Treachery. In the trial, Turnbull, the Australian lawyer,
attempted to prove that Pincher had corrupted Wright with money to obtain
the first bits of information on the Hollis case, and then allegedly cheated
Wright out of his monetary rewards. On both these points, as thorough as
Turnbull was, he failed to make a watertight case; yet the charges were
vastly embarrassing to Pincher.
The real issue in the Australian trial was the legitimacy of the
British Government's case, together with the veracity of its Cabinet
Secretary, Sir Robert Armstrong. He had been sent from London to speak to
the courtor, as Sir Robert himself admitted in an unguarded moment, "to
be the fall guy." In the end, both the government and Sir Robert were em-
barrassed and, worse still, they lost the case. Meanwhile, the trial had
generated international interest, so much in fact that an American publisher
decided to produce Wright's book in the United States, thereby ensuring the
spectacular financial success that made Wright a rich man.
To understand this complicated story, it is necessary to start with
James Angieton. As Pincher relates, Jonathan Aitken, a Tory MP and son of
Lord Beaverbrook, saw Angieton in Washington during a private visit in
December 1979. Mrs. Thatcher had just confirmed in Parliament Sir
Anthony Blunt's role as a Soviet agent. In a private conversation Angieton
warned Aitken that more was to come and that he believed there must be a
full inquiry into both MI-5 and MI-6. Astonished, Aitken asked why.
Angieton said he would think of a way to answer the question, and that
perhaps Mrs. Thatcher should be warned. When Aitken returned to London,
he found a letter in which Angieton provided the names of Arthur Martin
48
and Christopher Phillpotts, who had retired respectively from MI-5 and
MI-6. Aitken invited them to the House of Commons for a drink and
learned about the Hollis and Mitchell cases. On the basis of this informa-
tion, Aitken delivered a warning letter marked "confidential and personal"
to the Prime Minister.
Aitken later contacted Pincher, whom he had known for years, rev-
ealed what he had learned of the Hollis and Mitchell cases and showed him
the confidential letter he had delivered to Mrs. Thatcher. According to
Pincher, the detailed letter included the charge "that our Security Services
were penetrated by Soviet agents at a far more secret level than that at
which Philby, Burgess, Maclean, and Blunt were operating," and it named
as the principal secret agents Sir Roger Hollis and Mr. Graham Mitchell.
Pincher was involved in the Spycatcher trial from the start through
his association with Peter Wright, which began with a meeting at Lord
Rothschild's home in Cambridge on 4 September 1980. At this meeting,
Wright explained to Pincher his past employment with MI-5, his move to
Tasmania, his precarious financial position, and his raging belief that MI-5
had been and still was penetrated by Soviet agents. He noted Andrew
Boyle's success with his book on Blunt, which had flushed out the old spy.
Wright said he wanted to do the same thing and was writing a book on
Soviet penetration of MI-5, but his bad health and lack of financial
resources endangered its completion. To get Pincher's attention, Wright
spilled some of his secrets, prompting the author to agree to assist him with
the book. A financial agreement followed, and Pincher went to Tasmania to
debrief Wright. He then returned to England for further research and, writ-
ing furiously, had a completed manuscript in hand by the end of 1980.
The role of the late Lord Rothschild, who paid for Wright's air
ticket from Australia to England and return, remains clouded to this day. In
1980, Lord Rothschild was a pillar of respectability in English life. He had
served in MI-5 through World War II, earning the George Cross for hero-
ism, headed one of the largest merchant banks in the United Kingdom, and
led a brain trust for then-Prime Minister Heath. Whatever prompted him to
bring Wright to England and pass him along to Pincher, the bizarre events
that followed tarnished his reputation.
If the Rothschild role appears peculiar, the developments that fol-
lowed Pincher's selection of a publisher and their subsequent actions are
genuinely mind-boggling. The publisher, Sidgwick and Jackson, after read-
ing the synopsis, explained that, because the book would breach the Official
Secrets Act, the risk of publishing would be high. Given the sensitivity of
the manuscript, every precaution would have to be taken so that MI-5 would
49
not learn of it and initiate retributive action. Eventually the publisher sought
advice from an unidentified person who occasionally served as a confiden-
tial arbiter of taste and prudence concerning new book projects. The pub-
lisher and Pincher agreed to accept this person's advice and abide by his
decision. Within a few days the "arbiter" called for more information on
the book. Throughout the negotiations, Pincher kept Wright's role secret.
Complicated arrangements were made to pay his share of money from the
book through a bank in the Netherlands Antilles. The arbiter never learned
of Wright's role in the book, and Lord Rothschild distanced himself from
the project.
A further curious development occurred when the arbiter brought
into negotiations "a friend" upon whose advice he much relied. Sir Arthur
("Dickie") Franks, then Chief of MI-6. His identity became known at the
Sydney trial, which produced evidence that in March 1981 Franks told MI-5
that Pincher was producing a book about the Security Service. About this
time, Sir Robert Armstrong was advised (probably by MI-5) of the book's
contents. Meanwhile, the book was being edited, and arrangements were be-
ing made to sell portions to the daily press. Pincher was much relieved
when it appeared in book shops late in the spring of 1981.
Their Trade is Treachery was an immediate sensation, particularly
because within days it forced Mrs. Thatcher again to admit, as in the case of
Blunt, that a sensitive matter of great security importance had been kept
secret. She announced that both the Director General of MI-5 and his
deputy had been investigated as possible Soviet agents, but in both cases no
proof was found to substantiate these charges. Sir Roger Hollis was dead,
but Graham Mitchell was alive and living in Surrey. While the announce-
ment embarrassed the British government, it devastated Mitchell and his fa-
mily. Pincher later brushed aside these repercussions, claiming that such
personal tragedies are merely the result of investigative journalism and part
of the price that people must pay for freedom of the press.
Much of The Spycatcher Trial is devoted to assailing Pincher's erst-
while colleague, Peter Wright, for what Pincher claims were false state-
ments to the court. He also denounces the Australian legal system. Justice
Powell (the judge in the case), and especially Malcolm Turnbull, the brash,
aggressive young Australian lawyer who handled the case for Heinemann's.
The evidence Turnbull brought forward damaged Pincher's already suspect
reputation. Pincher is also offended by the treatment of the main British
Government representative, Sir Robert Armstrong. He admits, however, that
Armstrong's performance left something to be desired, especially after his
famous admission to the judge, on one occasion, that "perhaps I was being
economical with the truth."
50
Wright was not the only person to profit from the Spycatcher trial; it
also made Pincher a rich man. Despite the wounds he claims to have suf-
fered, sales of his original book on HollisTheir Trade Is Treacherywent
into five editions as a result of all the publicity.
In the aftermath, MI-5 was hauled over the coals by the media, left
and right, for incompetence, for being penetrated by hordes of Soviet
agents, for numerous illegal activities, and for a lack of responsibility to the
Prime Minister. Although the affair embarrassed the government, the Prime
Minister's safe majority in the Commons assured that Mrs. Thatcher would
not suffer serious political damage. Her position, in fact, improved when it
was found that the Labor Party leader, Neil Kinnock, had covertly tried to
make political profit from the trial through his contacts with Turnbull in
Australia.
The public person who suffered most because of the trial was Sir
Robert Armstrong, whose long career ended on an inglorious note. Before
the trial he was considered a sure bet upon retirement to become Provost of
Eton College, one of England's most prestigious sinecures. The trial
demolished that possibility. Mrs. Thatcher tried to ease the pain by making
him a life peer the following year, but the public image of him will always
be one of the supercilious "Pom" trussed up and barbecued by a sneering
Malcolm Turnbull.
Pincher's transparent effort in this book to put his literary activities
in the best light and to exonerate himself from association with illegal or
shady dealings does not succeed. In addition, he fails to cast a critical eye
upon the machinations of Whitehall, which in the end permitted his book
Their Trade Is Treachery to be published while Wright's later effort brought
down the weight of the British Government against publishing Spycatcher:
The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer.
Perhaps the Australian trial was a fitting conclusion to this mess. It
is a cautionary tale.
Brook-Shepherd, Gordon. The Storm Birds:
Soviet Post-War Defectors. London: Weidenfeld
and Nicolson, 1988 (303 pages).
With publication of this book, Gordon Brook-Shepherd, a British
foreign correspondent turned historian, has done the best work of his long
career. As intelligence history dealing with Soviet postwar defectors, it is
not only an exciting read but is accurate in almost every respect.
51
Compressed within its 303 pages is the story of how the Western intelli-
gence services, largely denied the possibility of obtaining information from
within the Soviet Union, came to realize the enormous intelligence value of
those Soviets who risked their lives to make the leap to freedom.
Brook-Shepherd immersed himself thoroughly in the details of the
defections and comprehends how these events affected the secret world of
intelligence, making judgments that are objective and fair. He achieved this
kind of professional knowledge partly from work on his earlier book, The
Storm Petrels, which recounted the story of prewar defectors from the
Soviet Union. With this experience, plus generous help from CIA and the
British intelligence services, he has written a fascinating account of how
and why so many senior Soviet intelligence officials defected and the im-
pact they had on the West.
The author deals with his complex subject in chronological fashion,
starting with the first postwar defector, Igor Gouzenko in Canada. It is
difficult today to comprehend how little Western governments knew about
Soviet espionage and subversive activity prior to Gouzenko's defection in
September 1945. This event and the revelations that flowed from it stunned
both statesmen and the public. The effect on the United States was enor-
mous when combined with the defections from Communism of Americans
like Elizabeth Bentley, Louis Budenz, and Whittaker Chambers, all of
whom made significant contributions to the growing mass of evidence about
Soviet illegal activities.
In Canada, where Prime Minister Mackenzie King seemed unable to
grasp the enormity of Soviet transgressions, Gouzenko's act laid the
groundwork for establishing a security service in the Royal Canadian
Mounted Police. In Britain, Gouzenko's information also had an electric
effect, but behind-the-scenes agents such as Philby were often able to blunt
its force.
9
Although Gouzenko was the first Soviet intelligence officer to
defect after the war and the impact of his disclosures are almost beyond
measure, Brook-Shepherd does not include him amongst the postwar defec-
tors he describes as "giants." He defines a giant as one who dominated the
scene in the sense that his contribution went beyond his normal professional
assets to play a strategic role in postwar history. The three he puts in this
category are Penkovsky, "Farewell," and Gordievsky. All of the defectors
he examines were intelligence officers of either the KGB or GRU with one
exception: Arkady Shevchenko, the one-time under Secretary-General at the
United Nations. He was included because of his personal and political sig-
nificance.
" For example, Philby singlehandedly, without drawing attention to himself, managed to prevent a po-
sition paper urging stronger action against the Soviets from reaching Prime Minister Atlee.
52
The book also examines the motives of the Soviet defectors. A
primary and nearly constant impulse was fearoften sheer terrorof what
awaited them upon their return to Moscow for transgressions they may have
committed. In addition they shared a common reaction to their experience
when they visited the outside world: shock at the gray misery of the Soviet
Union in contrast to the freedom and affluence of the West (even in the old
days, the Soviet-occupied zone of Austria seemed like Heaven compared to
what they left behind in the USSR). This contrast with the Soviet homeland
shook the faith of many Soviet intelligence officers despite the lavish
privileges they enjoyed but were denied ordinary Soviet citizens.
Although the seed usually was planted early for defection, it often
took some other reason to trigger the act. These included marital problems,
petty disputes or jealousies within the Soviet community (always a very iso-
lated group), or simply the hope for a better life in the free world. Whatever
the case, all the motives for defection when taken together reveal a disgust
with the oppressive Soviet regime, which really means the basic reason was
ideological.
Gouzenko's difficulty in finding any person or agency who would
listen to his story highlighted a gaping deficiency in the way Western intel-
ligence and security services handled defectors. During the war when the
Soviet Union was adulated as a heroic ally, there were few defectors. One of
them, Victor Kravchenko, who was not an intelligence officer, had a
difficult time escaping from the Soviet Purchasing Mission in Washington
in 1944 and was lucky to have survived. His defection was not publicized,
and his story was published only after the war when attitudes toward the
USSR changed.
Other attempted defections had a less happy ending. The most fa-
mous was that of Konstantin Volkov, described in some detail in
Brook-Shephard's book. The foiling of his attempt was almost certainly
Philby's most desperate and successful coup. Volkov had approached the
British consulate in Istanbul shortly after the end of the war with an offer of
information which, had he not been neutralized by Philby's quick action,
undoubtedly would have lead to the exposure of all Soviet agents in Britain.
Another case in which Philby succeeded in derailing the information, if not
the informant, was that of Ishmael Akhmedov, a GRU officer who defected
to the Turks during wartime. Later, during this tour as MI-6 chief in
Istanbul, Philby prevented Akhmedov's information from reaching the West
except in truncated form. The episode highlights a neglected aspect of the
damage Philby inflicted on the West. CIA eventually got access to
Akhmedov, but not until 10 years after his defection!
The last example of Philby's infamous service to the KGB that is
discussed by Brook-Shepherd concerns a young English-speaking GRU
officer named Vladimir Skripkin. This little known case began in Tokyo in
53
early 1946 when Skripkin made overtures to both American and British
authorities. For some reason he received no encouragement from the
American side. Because he was soon to be posted back to Moscow, he then
made a pass at the British, leaving with them an address in Moscow where
he asked to be contacted. Upon his return, he was seized by the KGB and
never heard of again. Two KGB defectors (Rastvorov and Deriabin) told
CIA later that Skripkin had been given away by a British intelligence
source, who almost certainly was Philby.
The Storm Birds then turns to a series of defections in 1954 that
were touched off in part by the execution of Lavrenti Beriya, head of
Stalin's secret police. By this time. Western servicesthe CIA in
particularwere more alert and had improved the system for receiving and
handling defectors expeditiously. The first in this wave was Yuri Rastvorov,
a KGB officer who initially approached the British but changed his mind
and went to CIA instead. The next was KGB officer Peter Deriabin, whose
defection in Vienna and escape from the Soviets was skillfully managed by
CIA. Brook-Shepherd provides details of Deriabin's KGB background that
demonstrate how valuable his information was to the West.
An account of Nikolai Kokhlov's defection follows. The KGB had
dispatched Kokhlov to West Germany to assassinate the leader of the
National Alliance of Russian Solidarity, an anti-Soviet organization. Instead
he turned himself over to CIA, which used his information to launch a ser-
ies of operations, some successful and some failures. The Agency capital-
ized on the defector's assassination mission by developing anti-Soviet
propaganda from it. Kokhlov wrote a book about the affair and was reset-
tled in the United States, where he made a successful career in academia.
Finally, Brooke-Shepherd tells the harrowing story of Vladimir and
Evdokia Petrov, the KGB husband and wife team in the Soviet Embassy in
Canberra, Australia. They managed to escape to freedom in 1954 with the
assistance of ASIO, although the wife was nearly kidnapped back to the
USSR. Photographers captured on film the clumsy intervention of the KGB
security goons, and the picture of Mrs. Petrov being dragged shoeless across
the airport tarmac to a waiting plane gave the Soviets a very black eye.
From their long service, mostly as cipher clerks, the Petrovs provided
valuable information, including the first knowledge that the "missing diplo-
mats," Burgess and Maclean, were in Moscow. Like Gouzenko in Canada,
they also identified a number of KGB agents in the Australian Government
and trade unions. The successful management of the defection gave the
fledgling ASIO a special boost and put it in the league of major security
services.
54
Two chapters are devoted to the Penkovsky case. This is a well-
done summary that, however, has been overtaken by the more exhaustive
study entitled The Spy Who Saved the World, by Jerrold Schecter and Peter
Deriabin, published in 1992. Next are the stories ofthe two most controver-
sial defectors, Anatole Golitsyn and Yuriy Nosenko. The complexity of
these related episodes provides a true test of the author's ability to analyze
vast amounts of information and testimony. In both cases, he has done a
good job of sorting out the facts and arriving at fair judgments. He obvi-
ously had help on the Golitsyn chapter from MI-5 and MI-6 and perhaps
some guidance from CIA. Brook-Shepherd puts Golitsyn in perspective
regarding the value of his product and his later career as troublemaker, es-
pecially for the Agency. The author does the same with Nosenko, dealing
fairly with the charges by Edward J. Epstein and others about Nosenko's
testimony concerning Oswald. Someone in the CIA, however, should have
told Brook-Shepherd that Admiral Turner in 1978 gave Nosenko a clean bill
of health and that every Director since, including William Casey, accepted
that conclusion, leaving no doubt that the defector was and is genuine.
In a chapter entitled "Pluses and Minuses," the case of Oleg Lyalin
in Britain takes first place, particularly because this KGB officer's defection
in 1971 triggered the famous deportation of 105 Soviet diplomats from the
United Kingdom. The "minuses" are the several Soviet intelligence officers
who, within one year (1971-1972), defected to US authorities and then later
redefected to Russia. Only one is worthy of detailed consideration, a young
KGB lieutenant named Artush Oganesyan who brought the latest issue of
the KGB's "Watch List" when he crossed the Soviet border into Turkey.
This was the annually revised catalogue of Soviet citizens of all sorts
ballet dancers, opera singers, scientists, athletes, officials, and intelligence
personnelwho had failed to return from visits to the West. Oganesyan
provided other valuable information as well, but in the eyes of James
Angieton, the "Watch List" cast suspicion on the defector because it con-
tained the name of Yuri Nosenko. The counterintelligence chief thought his
suspicions confirmed when Oganesyan and his young wife suddenly
redefected to the Soviets. Current CIA officials and Brook-Shepherd do not
share this view.
The special case of Arkady Shevchenko, who held an exalted posi-
tion at the United Nations in New York, is also treated. When his interest in
defecting became known, the CIA managed to convince him to work in
place as long as possible. This turned out to be more than two years. When,
in 1978, the order came for his return to Moscow, he openly defected, wrote
a bestseller about his experiences as a senior Soviet diplomat, married an
American woman, and quietly settled into American life.
55
All of the final cases Brook-Shepherd covers fall roughly within the
1975-85 timeframe. A GRU officer, Vladimir Rezun, who defected to the
British in Switzerland in 1978, brought considerable information, the most
alarming being specifics about the Red Army's Spetsnaz or Special Purpose
Forces units. These units, present in every part of the Soviet military, were
tasked to employ sabotage, terror, and other extreme action in the event of
war. Under British direction, Rezun, using the pseudonym "Victor
Suvorov," wrote several books about his experiences in the Soviet military,
emphasizing the role of Spetsnaz units. The British let Brook-Shepherd talk
to Rezun, following the example of CIA, which had made several of its
defectors available to him.
Victor Levchenko, a KGB officer engaged in active measures in
Tokyo, defected to the CIA in 1979. He had been in Tokyo since 1975 and
was able to reveal not only organizational details of Soviet intelligence in
Japan but also the extent of Soviet penetration and collaboration within the
Japanese Government and the media. He also provided inside information
on KGB active measures worldwide. Mounting interest in the subject at the
time made these revelations especially valuable. Levchenko subsequently
wrote a book and lectured widely about Soviet "special measures."
The penultimate defector case discussed in the book is that of
Vladimir I. Vetrov, known as "Farewell". His story begins in France and
ends in Moscow with his execution in the early 1980s. Aside from its lurid
aspects (including a murder and a mistress), the case is of special interest
because it revealed, in excruciating detail, Soviet efforts to obtain scientific
and technical information from the West. Even more alarming. Farewell's
reporting disclosed how successful this massive KGB endeavor had been
and that much of it was directed at US industry.
Early in his career. Farewell was stationed in Paris where he made
many contacts. Several years later he contacted the French. When his infor-
mation became available, President Mitterand instructed the French intelli-
gence service to share it with the United States. The voluminous product
and the insight it provided into the intricate Soviet system for collecting
scientific and technical intelligence was of inestimable value to the US
Intelligence Community. Farewell had moved steadily upward in the KGB
department responsible for technical and scientific espionage abroad, and
from that vantage point he could monitor Soviet operations and scientific
requirements. Without question he was one of the most important agents
ever to work for the West. Within the constraints of the limited information
released by the French, Brook-Shepherd has done an excellent job in
presenting this story.
The author concludes his book with a brief chapter on Oleg
Gordievsky, who defected in 1985. By the time Brook-Shepherd was com-
pleting his work, however, Gordievsky was busy writing his own story in
56
collaboration with Dr. Christopher Andrew. Undoubtedly for this reason
and the fact that, when The Storm Birds was published, the defector's wife
and children were still held hostage in the USSRBrook-Shepherd ob-
tained only minimal information about Gordievsky's background and
achievements. It is nonetheless sufficient to make a lively conclusion to this
remarkable book.
Kessler, Ronald. Spy Vs Spy: The Shocking True
Story of the FBI's War Against Soviet Agents in
America. New York: Pocket Books, 1988 (370
pages).
Ronald Kessler, one of the most prolific American writers on espi-
onage, has in this book produced an interesting and useful compendium of
cases covering FBI operations against foreign spies (mostly Soviet) in the
United States. Although CIA officers can find at their headquarters more ac-
curate and complete summaries for many of the events Kessler covers, this
book is a handy introduction to some of the most important espionage cases
the Bureau handled during the past two decades. It is of special interest be-
cause it describes briefly two serious penetrations which did great damage
to the CIA during the period that James Angieton was chief of the
Counterintelligence Staff.
For exciting reading, Kessler's description of the apprehension of
John Walker, the US Navy warrant officer who for years delivered high
grade communications intelligence to the KGB, is unsurpassed. He also in-
cludes the story of how Ronald Pelton, the Soviet spy at the National
Security Agency (NSA) was caught, tried, and imprisoned, as well as an ac-
count of the defection of the renegade CIA officer, Edward Lee Howard, to
the Soviet Union in 1985. Kessler presents these cases from the FBI view-
point, using layman's language to describe how the FBI's counterintelli-
gence division did its vital work. In doing so, as The New York Times book
review stated, Kessler takes full advantage of "an opportunity to distinguish
between what is folly and what is fruitful in such an important but little
known area."
For CIA readers the two most fascinating cases, aside from the
dreadful Howard disaster, are the ones involving Karl and Hana
Koecheragents for the Czech Intelligence Service (CIS) and thus for the
KGBand the saga of Larry Wu-Tai Chin, a long-time agent of the Chinese
Intelligence Service whose target was the CIA. Kessler devotes considerable
attention to the Koechers; he visited Prague after they were turned over to
the Soviets (in exchange for famous dissident Nathan Sharansky) in order to
57
interview them about their activities in the United States, but as good spies
they stonewalled. There is no doubt, however, that Karl Koecher, who was a
translator of Russian material, had passed volumes of information to the
CIS, which in turned passed it to the KGB.
One significant result of his treachery was the arrest by the KGB of
Aleksander D. Ogorodnik, an immensely productive CIA source in the
Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs, whose identity Koecher passed to his
Czech handler. (Ogorodnik foiled the KGB by taking a suicide pill the CIA
had given him before he could be taken into custody.) Koecher managed
somehow to pass a lie detector test and became a CIA contract employee in
February 1973 with a top secret security clearance. Kessler emphasizes that
Hana Koecher was an attractive blonde, and he alleges that she and her hus-
band cultivated numerous people in Washington through their swinging life-
style without providing any proof that this facilitated their espionage activi-
ty. The FBI arrested them in 1984.
The case of Larry Wu-Tai Chin is equally fascinating. Chin began
spying for the Chinese Intelligence Service as early as the Korean War but
was not employed by the CIA until 1952. In 1970, he became a US citizen
and a CIA staff employee with top secret clearances.
Being fluent in three Chinese dialects, Chin was in great demand
and was considered the CIA's best translator. Upon his retirement in 1981,
he was awarded the Career Intelligence Medal. In addition to translating
foreign broadcasts and publications, Chin had access to information about
clandestine CIA operations in China as well as other sensitive intelligence
material. Because his reporting to his Chinese masters was so voluminous,
the FBI had to assign a considerable contingent to review his production,
according to the FBI's post mortem. The Bureau learned of his treachery,
Kessler says, from a defector not otherwise identified but presumably
Chinese. FBI interrogators cleverly used the defector's information to ob-
tain a general confession from Chin. He was found guilty after a jury trial
and sentenced to prison, where he later committed suicide. Kessler notes,
correctly, that, aside from Karl Koecher, Chin is the only other known mole
to have penetrated the CIA.
Kessler also provides details of other FBI counterintelligence cases,
including so-called "dangle" operations and double agents. The book is
slightly marred by the stories the author intersperses in a rather jumbled
way instead of relating them in an orderly series. His reporting, however, is
sound and accurate, being based largely on interviews with FBI officers
who actually were involved in the cases described. The book is a valuable
contribution to counterintelligence literature on the FBI experience. The last
chapter is a thoughtful commentary on the problems posed for counterintel-
ligence operators in a democratic society.
58
Epstein, Edward J. Deception: The Invisible War
Between the KGB and the CIA. New York: Simon
and Schuster, 1989 (335 pages).
Epstein published Deception in mid-1989, just as the Soviet Union
was on the verge of its demise in the autumn of 1991. The concurrent dis-
mantling of the KGB, its major intelligence arm, led almost overnight to the
disappearance of what was once a small industry in the West employing
dozens of self-appointed experts in universities and think tanks who were
devoted to the study of Soviet deception, disinformation, and subversion.
Their endeavors, and Epstein's book, now have the smell of attic dust.
Like its predecessor Legend, Deception has two parts. The first 105
pages explain Angleton's theories, as developed by Epstein, largely from
lengthy interviews with Anatole Golitsyn. The remainder of the book
describes various forms of deception. One chapter is devoted to another
Soviet defector, Vitali Yurchenko, who Epstein believes is a KGB
provocateur similar to Nosenko. The conclusion is a long chapter on glas-
nost, which Epstein dismisses as simply another massive KGB deception.
The most arresting information in the book is the author' s
confession regarding his sources for this book and Legend. After Angieton
died on 11 May 1987, Epstein apparently felt free to admit that the former
chief of CIA counterintelligence had been his major source since 1976 when
they first met.
1
"
Most astute observers had concluded that Angieton was leaking
classified information to Epstein and others, but nothing was officially done
to caution the discredited cold warrior. On the other hand, when CIA found
that Clare E. Petty had been leaking classified material to the press, he
received an official warning letter. Even in forced retirement, Angieton
enjoyed protected and special status, as he had when he was at the Agency.
In Part One, Epstein recites again, as in Legend, the Angieton belief
in the KGB program of deception and penetration, which the former CI
Staff chief had heard about from Golitsyn and then embellished. One of
Golitsyn's major claims, made almost immediately after his defection, was
that the KGB would soon send another defector to "mutilate" Golitsyn's
leads, as Angieton invariably put it. Thus when Nosenko defected to the
'"Angieton had referred Epstein to his assistants, Miler and Rocca, and provided introductions to re-
tired CIA counterintelligence officer William Hood and FBI officers William Sullivan and Sam
Papich Angieton also sent Epstein to England to see Stephen de Mowbray, the former MI-6 officer
and a devoted disciple of Golitsyn, and to Belgium to see a former Chief of Station, Tennent (Pete)
Bagley, another believer In Deception. Epstein provides an amusing account of Ihe clandestine cir-
cumstances under which they met, indicating Bagley clearly understood he was discussing sensitive
matters.
59
CIA in 1964, Angieton viewed him as the predicted plant. This in turn en-
sured that Golitsyn would maintain his primacy as the CI Staff's resident
expert on the subject.
When Nosenko did not confess that he was a false defector, CIA in-
carcerated him for three years under severe conditions. Epstein blames this
action entirely on the management of the Soviet Division in CIA's
Directorate of Operations, and he portrays Angieton as agonizing helplessly
on the sidelines. This is patently absurd. Angieton was aware of all the legal
considerations associated with such action and of the construction of the
prison quarters but never raised an objection. If he had, as Epstein claims he
did, one word from him to Director Richard Helms would have prevented
Nosenko's detainment.
This is but one of many errors and misinterpretations in the book.
Like Legend, it is propaganda for Angieton and essentially dishonest. The
errors are too many to document here, but one more example will give the
flavor. On page 85, Epstein cites Golitsyn's assertion that Soviet intelli-
gence was divided into an "outer" and an "inner" KGB to support the
deception program. Nothing, however, can be found in any of Golitsyn's
debriefings that remotely supports this. Moreover, no other Soviet source or
defector has ever reported the existence of two KGBs, including the most
senior defector of recent times, Oleg Gordievsky.
Golitsyn probably developed this fiction after visiting England,
when other evidence indicates he began to embroider and fabricate. One
exasperated senior FBI officer wrote to Director J. Edgar Hoover: "Golitsyn
is not above fabricating to support his theories." Epstein, who makes con-
siderable pretensions to scholarship, should have been more conscientious
in checking such stories with more responsible sources before labeling them
as fact.
In summary, this is one of many bad books inspired by Angieton
after his dismissal that have little basis in fact. An interview with Epstein in
Vanity Fair magazine in May 1989 suggests he too has had second thoughts
about Angieton and even about Golitsyn, his pet defector. Epstein admitted
that Golitsyn shaped Angleton's views and possibly was a liar. The inter-
view ended with the remark: "Actually, I don't know whether to believe
Angieton at all!"
60
Andrew, Christopher, and Gordievsky, Oleg.
KGB: The Inside Story of its Operations From
Lenin to Gorbachev. New York: Harpers Collins
Publishers, 1990 (776 pages).
This is an excellent and comprehensive work by the brilliant
Cambridge University historian, Christopher Andrew, in collaboration with
Oleg Gordievsky, the most remarkable and productive Soviet defector of re-
cent times. When Gordievsky made his thrilling escape from Moscow in
1985 and was safely in British hands in London, his active career as a
penetration of the KGB was finished. His British friends fully realized,
however, that he remained a gold mine of information on the KGB's opera-
tions, personnel, and organizational structure. Indeed, because he had been
involved in researching histories of several different divisions at KGB head-
quarters, he possessed a unique knowledge of the organization's operations.
Many defectors from the Soviet services had to decide to leave almost on
the spur of the moment and therefore had no chance to collect special infor-
mation or documents. By contrast, Gordievsky, after deciding to defect, had
over a decade during which he continued to collect information and respond
to British intelligence requirements. Circumstances prevented him from
bringing documents when he escaped, but it is clear from the voluminous
detail in this book that he did his job with uncommon attention to detail.
Gordievsky's service in the KGB began in 1962. For nine years he
served at the Center in Moscow and in Copenhagen organizing operations
by KGB illegals. This was followed by 13 years doing political intelligence
work in Copenhagen, at the Center, and in London, where he was deputy
resident. His senior positions at the Center and in London gave him excep-
tional access. Despite his unqualified success as a KGB apparatchik,
Gordievsky harbored doubts about both the KGB and the Soviet system.
These doubts peaked in 1968 when he watched the repressive Soviet forces
sweep away the freedoms that had begun to flower during the Prague
Spring. It was then that he decided the Soviet system had to be brought
down and that one way to weaken it was to work secretly from within.
Having made his fateful judgment, he approached the British. After
careful assessment on both sides, he began working with British intelligence
in 1974yet another example of ideological defection, a man turning
against his government because of its despotic and inhuman nature.
Gordievsky's decision was an act of great courage involving enormous risk,
the nature of which most of us in the West can barely imagine.
61
British authorities were anxious to find a competent historian who
could be brought aboard to assist Gordievsky in organizing and writing his
story. The selection of Christopher Andrew to coauthor this massive work
was especially fortunate. The young Cambridge don had established himself
earlier as an intelligence historian of the first order with the publication of
his Secret Service: The Making of the British Intelligence Community.
Andrew not only was the right kind of professional; as a bonus the readers
got his rather puckish humor that often lightens the sometimes complex
detail.
These formidable collaborators have not disappointed their readers.
Previous to this book there had been (with the exception of the John Barron
books KGB: The Secret Work of Soviet Secret Agents and KGB Today: The
Hidden Hand) no really substantial or comprehensive work focusing on the
Soviet foreign intelligence service. George Leggett and John Dziak had
done scholarly studies on the Cheka, a very early antecedent of the KGB,
and there were scattered works on other aspects, but no truly comprehensive
history. It is ironic that just as the KGB faded from the contemporary scene,
its demise should be marked by such a distinguished literary monument.
The book's publication in late 1990 drew immediate attention and
was widely reviewed, usually with generous praise. Professor Robin Winks
of Yale was typical, writing in the Boston Globe: "This massive and unique
collaboration may well be the best book yet written on the actual practice,
as distinct from the theory, of intelligence. There can be no contest as to its
being the most fascinating history of the KGB now available." But not all
reviewers were so friendly. A few leftwing commentators took exception to
the late Harry Hopkins being described as an "unconscious source," and
there was additional grumbling about the book's treatment of the
Rosenbergs, Hiss, and some other American figures of the World War II
period. On the right, predictable criticism was directed mainly against the
authors' remarks on Angleton's responsibility for promoting, with unfor-
tunate results, deception and conspiracy theories within CIA and the British
and Canadian services.
There are factors that some serious critics highlighted and should be
considered when reading the book. As the authors noted early on, it was not
always possible while Gordievsky was with the KGB for him to research
securely matters that were not within his normal range of work. For this
reason there were some gaps that had to be filled by references to secondary
sources, not all of which can be considered entirely reliable. Another
restriction on Gordievsky's material has been largely unnoticed: what he
produced immediately became official material and was classified accord-
ingly by British intelligence. One suspects that much of his information
thereby could not be made available for the book under restrictions of the
Official Secrets Act. How much was withheld for that reason is impossible
to say.
62
Despite these difficulties, the majority of reviewers, especially the
professional experts, lauded the book not only as a good read but also as an
invaluable reference work. This writer can verify the latter fact; his copy
grows more tattered by the week.
Although the book did not answer all the questions, it did its best on
some high-priority issues. For the British, an obvious burning issue was the
accuracy of the claims by Peter Wright and others that various Britons had
worked for the Soviets. On this point, Gordievsky was able to do special
research and could assure London that Hollis, Mitchell, Liddell, Lord Victor
Rothschild, and others had not been in the employ of the KGB. In fact,
several senior KGB officers, noting the ruckus in the British media caused
by the allegations, had come to believe the whole matter was some arcane
British intelligence operation, the exact nature of which the KGB had not
been able to divine. Additionally, the authors made a point of noting the
long-sought "Fifth Man" was John Caimcross, a name known to specialists
but unknown to the public. Caimcross has since admitted his role as a
Soviet spy and is currently writing his own book about his espionage career.
His access was staggering, and his value to the Soviets was among the
highest of the so-called "Cambridge Five."
The book's revelations came just as the Soviet security system was
crumbling, soon to be replaced by a new and different apparatus designed to
function within a democracy. Under the new dispensation, there is some
reason to believe that secrets from the KGB archives may be released,
which will answer many still-outstanding questions. Scholars have or-
ganized to assist their Russian counterparts toward this end. Western pub-
lishers also are interested in this prospect. Crown Publishers of New York
has begun publishing a series of books based on revelations from the KGB
archives, the first of which was written by John Costello, an author of spy
books, and Oleg Tsarev, a former KGB officer. This work was published in
June 1993. What has been released from these archives so far is of rather
ancient vintage, mostly for the period 1930-50. Genuine documentation
from that period could be explosive. The real issue is how selective the
authorities in Moscow will be and what kind of spin they will attempt to put
on any story evolving from such archival material. Most specialists expect
that what is likely to emerge will not reflect adversely on the KGB or its
predecessor organizations and that objective truth is not likely to be well
served.
63
Mangold, Thomas. Cold Warrior; James Jesus
Angieton: The CIA's Master Spy Hunter. New
York: Simon and Schuster, 1991 (403 pages).
Cold Warrior is the only book published on counterintelligence dur-
ing the period reviewed that focuses on James Angieton as the central sub-
ject. All of the others deal with him as a secondary issue, although he was a
primary source for several of those works. Mangold's book is highly critical
of Angieton but is not anti-CIA except in the sense that its conclusion raises
some penetrating questions about the Agency's management of counterintel-
ligence during the last decade of Angleton's term.
Mangold, the senior correspondent for the BBC program "Pano-
rama," began work on this book in 1987. He came to the United States in
search of a research assistant and found an extraordinarily able one in
Jeffrey Goldberg. Together they made a formidable team, especially since
they entered the project with no preconceived notions nor any special ax to
grind except to write an honest and objective book that would sell well.
They were "fortunate to obtain some unique assistance when two previous
writers on intelligence, David Martin (whose Wilderness of Mirrors remains
a classic) and Professor Robin Winks of Yale; both offered encouragement
and suggested names of persons to interview.
Mangold and Goldberg got no help from the CIA; their repeated
requests for material under the Freedom of Information Act were rejected.
Despite this disappointment, Goldberg on his own turned up much new
material, and Mangold's main sources of information were numerous retired
CIA and FBI officers who were willing to talk either on or off the record."
Cold Warrior skims over Angleton's life before his Agency career
but is not really a biography; it is much more a study of the man as chief of
counterintelligence beginning in 1954, concentrating on the period from
1962 until his dismissal in late 1974. The year 1962 is a turning point be-
cause that is when Golitsyn appeared on the scene (having defected in
Finland in December 1961), a development that dominates the story. Before
that, Angleton's career was largely noncontroversial. With the arrival of
Golitsyn, howeverand especially after his return from England in the late
summer of 1963Angieton took complete control of the controversial
defector (much to the relief of the Soviet Division, which had previously
"Mangold cites the startling figure of 208 retired CIA officers That agitated some people at Langley
until they were reminded that John Ranelagh, in researching his classic The Agency, had interviewed
many more However, Ranelagh's book was considered benign and had a vague blessing from CIA
management, which realized Mangold's book about Angieton. if honest and objective, could only cast
a dark shadow over past events
64
been responsible for him) and was promptly mesmerized by some of
Golitsyn's most extreme theories. That influence on Angieton ultimately led
to the infamous molehunt which is the core of Mangold's story. It would
have been helpful had he noted that, despite the numerous disasters flowing
from the Angleton-Golitsyn collaboration, the Israeli branch of the
Counterintelligence staff during that period enjoyed some important intelli-
gence coups. Mangold in fact had compiled a chapter on Angieton and the
Israeli connection, but it was removed by his editor because she judged the
material as not sensational enough.
Some of the sources for the most explosive material in Cold
Warrior were from neither CIA nor FBI. General Sir Charles Spry, former
head of the ASIO, gave Mangold the story about Golitsyn's relationship
with a joint counterintelligence group involving the US and
English-speaking countries of the British Commonwealth. Excellent jour-
nalistic sources in Ottawa told Mangold the story about the "Tango" case
in Canada and its relevance to the charges against Bennett. Bennett himself
provided his account of why he was dismissed from Canada's security serv-
ice. While in Australia, Mangold gleaned further background on Angieton
from Peter Wright, the former British counterspy.
Most reviewers hailed Cold Warrior as a major triumph of research
and writing, especially because the sourcing was so relentlessly detailed
compared with other books on the Angieton phenomenon. The notes on
sources, in fact, comprise the best part of the book, providing solid informa-
tion in support of the main theme. This was a constant source of contention
between Mangold and his editor, who opposed what she regarded as its
excessive detail. Mangold remained adamant, arguing that, in the case of a
figure as controversial as Angieton, every fact should be sourced to the
fullest extent.
As might be expected, however, not even the sourcing stilled the
pro-Angleton critics of the book. They declared it inaccurate but were hard
pressed to provide sensible rebuttal. Some complained that the book did not
acknowledge the former counterintelligence chief's many successes,
without providing any details. One vigorous critic did cite the absence of
any treatment of what he alleged was Angleton's singular accomplishment:
that there was no (known) penetration of CIA during his 20-year steward-
ship. This is nonsense; there were no counterintelligence successes, only
disasters. In fact there were two penetrations during his tenure (one
Czechoslovak and one Chinese). Angleton's molehunts and other associated
activities did nothing to prevent such breaches of security and probably dis-
tracted those whose main task was to prevent them. Furthermore, Golitsyn
assured Allen Dulles that the KGB had no penetration of CIA. He later
65
changed his story and said there was one, a switch obviously intended to
preserve his primacy as Angleton's resident authority on Soviet intelligence.
Nosenko likewise told his debriefers he knew of no penetration but, because
this by then contradicted Golitsyn, he was subjected to hostile interrogation
and jailed for three years.
The molehunts without question were the centerpiece of Angleton's
career, but the search for traitors had ramifications involving Nosenko and
many other controversial issues. Within the Agency itself, the hunt focused
on only a handful of officers in the Directorate of Operations. Some of them
suffered considerable humiliation or their careers were blighted; others were
forced out of the Agency. Four major cases that were shown to the FBI were
rejected by the Bureau as unworthy of further serious investigation. In each
instance there was no substantial evidence against the individual who was
accused.
All of this was done at the whim of Golitsyn, who often was al-
lowed by Angieton to review CIA personnel and operational files.
Angleton's irresponsible behavior in this regard did not prevent Soviet suc-
cesses but instead sowed distrust and confusion. The incompetence of the
KGB and, more likely, the Agency polygraph program's successes deserve
the lion's share of the credit for preventing penetrations even though the
polygraph operators did not cover themselves with glory on the two that oc-
curred.
The disruption might have been worse had not more prudent and ra-
tional authorities intervened in opposition to Angleton's recommendations.
(DCI Richard Helms' release of Nosenko and SIS Chief Sir Dick White's
refusal to countenance the return of the defector Yuri Krotkov to the Soviets
spring to mind as examples.) This book is not a complete catalogue of
Angleton's misdeeds. The mother lode of evidence about them in the ar-
chives at Langley is by no means exhausted. Mangold's informants told him
only what they knew or wished him to know. Much was withheld, and the
informants often knew only a small part of the story. Moreover, at his edi-
tor's request, Mangold cut out a great deal of material.
Cold Warrior nevertheless is an honest and accurate book.
Mangold's conclusion is inescapable: something was seriously wrong with
CIA counterintelligence under Angieton. Some trait in the man's character,
at once attractive and repulsivehis intellectual arrogance perhaps
apparently led him to make serious misjudgments. What Mangold was able
to cram into his 403 pages is devastating to Angleton's reputation, due
largely to numerous knowledgeable sources the author found among CIA
and FBI retirees. It was human nature for them to want to put the record
66
straight, but many undoubtedly violated their oaths in speaking so frankly.
So had many others who some years before had spoken to Edward Jay
Epstein.
Wise, David. Molehunt: The Secret Search for
Traitors That Shattered the CIA. New York:
Random House, 1992 (325 pages).
David Wise, sometimes described as the dean of espionage writers,
has produced a readable and accurate account of the molehunt in CIA under
James Angieton in the 1960s. It seems a slight exaggeration, however, to
describe it as an event that "shattered the CIA." Although he writes that the
hunt involved more than 50 cases, just eight of them are discussed in the
book and only three in detail. He also mentions Angleton's atrocious accu-
sation that David Murphy, another senior Agency officer, was a Soviet
agent, but Murphy's refusal to talk to Wise limits his treatment of that issue.
The molehunt and its victims are the centerpiece of the book, but the author
gives the reader a fascinating overview of Angleton's multifold activities in
collaboration with Anatole Golitsyn, his defector-turned-mentor.
When Wise began his research for this book, he probably intended
to produce a full biography of Angieton but soon learned Tom Mangold had
beat him off the mark by over a year in preparing his Cold Warrior. Wise
had to regroup, and he decided instead to concentrate on the molehunt. This
proved to be a worthy topic. Using the testimony of several former CIA
officers whose careers suffered because of Angleton's suspicions of them,
the author provides an exceptionally interesting narrative. His stories of
Peter Karlow, Paul Garbler, Richard Kovich, Vasia Gmirkin, George
Goldberg, and others are an appalling testament to Angleton's paranoia and
CIA management's failure to bring him under control.
The fact that so many senior officials were willing to be quoted
reflects the depth of their feelings, which were suppressed for years, regard-
ing the many injustices perpetrated under Angleton's direction. Wise did
careful and extensive research on the events he describes, using footnotes to
amplify and document his story, although he does not provide the kind of
supportive detail that is the hallmark of the Mangold book.
While Molehunt is highly critical of Angieton, his supporters did
not attack it as viciously as some did Mangold's work. Cold Worrier had
appeared one year earlier and was like a heavy douse of cold water on the
former counterintelligence chief's conspiracy theories. Many reviewers
67
perhaps were becoming accustomed to Angletonian mischief by the time the
Wise book appeared with more evidence of it. Among the pro-Angletonians,
two such dousings in rapid succession did much to dampen their enthusiasm
for further verbal combat.
Wise devotes considerable attention to Igor Orlov, who was thought
to be the Soviet penetration molehunters were seeking on the advice of
Golitsyn. At KGB headquarters Golitsyn had heard of "Sasha," which he
thought was the codename for an important source. Later, after studying
classified CIA files in Washington, he concluded Sasha was Igor Orlov.
Orlov, indeed, was a likely candidate; he was never a CIA officer but had
served the Agency in Germany as a contract agent doing operational support
work. As such he would have been a useful source for the KGB, although
he never had access to the kind of intelligence Golitsyn claimed an agent in
Germany had produced. About that time the Soviets did have a valuable
American military source in Germany. Golitsyn probably had seen material
received from both sources and concluded that the product from the military
officer, which often contained CIA finished intelligence, had come from
Orlov. The simple fact is the two sources were confused in Golitsyn's mind.
His confusion persisted throughout the molehunt and thwarted its
effectiveness, despite available evidence that should have clarified the issue.
Not the least of this evidence was Golitsyn's own lead on that military
officer plus one from Nosenko on the same person. Because Nosenko was
not thought to be genuine, however, his vitally important lead was never
followed up by the Agency's counterintelligence staff and matched with the
Golitsyn lead. If the two leads had been considered together, investigators
would very likely have been led to the military officer, who was not as-
sociated with CIA but passed Agency material to the KGB whenever he had
the opportunity. The molehunt would at least have been a partial success
and, with the apprehension of the true spy, Angieton would have been a
hero.
The officers associated with the molehunt who knew the whole
story would rather forget this embarrassing failure. Thus it seems likely
Wise never heard from them the complete tale, causing him to make more
of Orlov than he deserves.
12
None of this, however, diminishes Wise's well-
told story about Orlov, on whom Golitsyn and Angieton had concentrated so
much attention.
I2
AII of this is reminiscent of the Vassal! case in the United Kingdom for which Golitsyn provided the
initial lead This prompted a lengthy search that was concluded when Nosenko's additional informa-
tion was followed up, permitting Ml-5 lo identify the culprit in short order. In other words, the British
were not handicapped, as was Angieton, by suspicion of Nosenko's bona fides.
68
Wise's Molehunt is an important addition to the literature of the
Angieton period. It is the last of a trilogy of books critical of Angieton that
includes David Martin's Wilderness of Mirrors and Tom Mangold's Cold
Warrior.
Schecter, Jerrold L., and Deriabin, Peter S. The
Spy Who Saved The World: How A Soviet Colonel
Changed the Course of the Cold War. New York:
Charles Scribner and Sons, 1992 (488 pages).
This thrilling account of one of history's greatest espionage cases
has many counterintelligence elements that merit consideration in this
review. Especially interesting is chapter seven entitled "The Aftermath"
in which the authors examine what went wrong in the saga of Oleg
Penkovsky and the various claims that he was under hostile control. Anyone
reading that chapter will surely be compelled to read the entire book. The
story from start to finish is one of the great yarns of modem intelligence
literature, and its treatment in this work fully justifies the award it received
from the National Intelligence Study Center for the best national intelli-
gence book published in 1992.
The book was a joint effort by Jerrold Schecter and Peter Deriabin.
Schecter did most of the interviewing and all of the writing while Deriabin
did much of the research and translation of documents. Schecter was TIME-
LIFE bureau chief in Moscow from 1968 to 1970 and later served on the
National Security Council staff from 1977 to 1980. The author of four
books, he was instrumental in bringing Khrushchev's memoirs to the West.
Peter Deriabin was with the KGB, mainly in the First Chief Directorate
from 1947 until his defection in 1954 in Vienna, where he worked in coun-
terintelligence. He was a consultant to the US Army and CIA until his
retirement in 1982. He died in 1992, shortly after the book was published.
With such a formidable combination, it is not surprising that the book is so
well written and accurate.
Fortunately for the history of intelligence, Schecter and Deriabin in
1987 appealed to CIA under the Freedom of Information Act to open its
files so they might write a biography of Col. Oleg Penkovsky. Because 25
years had passed since the case had been terminated, permission for access
to the Penkovsky material was granted subject to security clearance by the
CIA Publications Review Board. The release of the material did not consti-
tute an Agency endorsement of the author's point of view or the factual
69
accuracy of the manuscript. In addition to extracting material from the files,
Schecter managed to talk to some key players from both CIA and MI-6
about their experiences.
Colonel Penkovsky's position as a trusted senior officer in the
Soviet military intelligence headquarters in Moscow gave him unique ac-
cess to military information desperately needed by the West. He jeopardized
his personal security by providing voluminous material to American and
British contacts during three visits to the West (two to London and one to
Paris) and, when in Moscow, to Britons assigned to receive his material
there. In Moscow the frequency of his operational meetings with the wife of
a British Embassy official during the autumn of 1961 may have attracted
the attention ofthe KGB, which already knew that her husband was an MI-6
officer. Earlier, Penkovsky had risked exposure by making several attempts
to contact Western intelligence through random approaches to American
tourists and a Canadian diplomat.
Perhaps the greatest risk of all, however, lay in the massive volume
of high-quality material Penkovsky provided to a wide audience of US and
UK intelligence customers. Although the most stringent security controls
were maintained, several Soviet spies may have had access to the material.
That Penkovsky was the source was never revealed to them, but if Soviet
authorities in Moscow saw examples of what the West had obtained, they at
least would have been alerted that a massive leak existed.
The Cuban missile crisis in October 1962 revealed Penkovsky's
unique value. He had provided manuals and other detailed technical infor-
mation on Soviet missiles that helped identify the devices Khrushchev had
secretly installed in Cuba. The authors tell this story well, and they leave no
doubt about the magnitude of Penkovsky's contribution in assisting
President Kennedy and his advisers to make their fateful decisions.
As the case developed, questions naturally were raised constantly
about Penkovsky's true status. Was he genuine, or was he a Soviet double
agent providing false information for some deceptive purpose? The conclu-
sion that he was not a double agent was based on the judgment the Soviets
would never release so much high-quality material to support a deception.
Clinching this view was the first batch of material passed by Penkovsky,
which included valid lists of Soviet agents abroad as well as GRU officers
under false cover. The agents in particular would never have been sacrificed
by an intelligence service, especially by the Soviets, who usually provided
only "chicken feed" to the target intelligence service during double-agent
operations. The view that Penkovsky was genuine, although frequently
challenged, prevailed throughout the operation and was supported by on-
the-spot assessments of MI-6 and CIA officers who dealt directly with him.
70
Even Angieton concluded that, while he thought Penkovsky was some kind
of crazy anarchist, his material was undoubtedly genuine.
Only after the operation ended did strong doubts about Penkovsky's
genuineness begin to emerge. The principal articulator of this skepticism
was Golitsyn who, as he learned more about the case, became more voluble
in asserting that Penkovsky was controlled by the KGB. In due course,
Angieton was persuaded. Meanwhile, CIA's Soviet Division (as well as
MI-6) was reexamining the operation. Obsessed as that division then was
with the Nosenko case and other divisive issues, it was difficult to resolve
the question, but the great majority of officers involved in the case re-
mained convinced Penkovsky was genuine.
Not until 1978, four years after Angleton's dismissal, was there a
truly comprehensive survey of the operation. This massive study established
beyond a doubt that Penkovsky, through the period of his association with
Anglo-American intelligence, was not under Soviet control. It firmly con-
cluded that material provided by Penkovsky was genuine and highly valua-
ble. The study expressed some uncertainty about how he was compromised,
but after a CIA officer was arrested at the deaddrop site, it was clear the
operation was finished.
The case was a classic espionage operation run successfully by CIA
and MI-6 at a critical time under the very nose of the KGB. Some aspects of
the case will continue to be debated, a recent example being an exchange
between Schecter and Thomas Powers (author of The Man Who Kept the
Secrets) in the 24 June 1993 issue of The New York Review of Books.
Whatever the arguments of detractors like Golitsyn and Powers, Penkovsky
played a vital role in helping the West at a moment of mortal danger. His
heroic story could not be better told than it is in The Spy Who Saved the
World.
Reverse Blank 71
Index
OfMoles and Molehunters:
A Review ofCounterintelligence
Literature, 1977-92
An Intelligence
Monograph
CenIerfor {he
Study ofintelligence
CSt 93-002
OCioba 1993
Individuals
ADAMS, Ian
AGEE, Philip
AITKENJ Jonathan
AKHMEDOV, Ishmael
ALLASON, Rupert (See Nigel WEST)
ANDREW, Christopher
ANGLETON, Cicely Mrs.
ANGLETON, James Jesus
ARMSTRONG, Robert
ARTAMONOV, Nikolai Fedorovich (See
ATTLEE, Clenent R.
BAGLEY, Tennent H.
BARRON, John
BASIL
BEAVERBROOK, I,r:illiam H.
B ~ T Leslie James
BENTLEY, Elizabeth
BERIYA (BERIA), Lavrenti
BLAKE, George
BLUNT, Anthony
BOYLE, Andrew
BROOK-SHEPHERD, Gordon
BRUNET, Gilles
BUDENZ, Louis
BURGESS, Guy
CAIRNCROSS, John
CASEY, l"'il1iam J.
CHAMBERS, vmittaker
CHIN, Larry Wu-Tai
CIMPERMAN, John
CLIDG, Hugh
COLBY, William E.
COPAKEN, Richard
COPLON, Judi th
CORSON, William R.
COSTELLO, John
CRAl-1, Cleveland C.
DE BORCHGRAVE, Arnaud
DE LOACH, Deke
DE MOWBRAY, Stephen
DERIABIN, Peter S.
DULLES, Allen
DWYER, Peter
DZIAK, John
EISLER, Gerhard
EPSTEIN, Edwa:rd Jay
35
3
16, 17, 33, 34, 48
53
vi, 21, 24, 44, 57, 61-63
6
1-17, 22-34, 36, 37, 39, 41, 43,
48, 55, 57, 59, 60, 64-69, 71
18, 47, 48, 50, 51
Nicholas George SHADRIN)
52
3, 7, 10, 59
62
15, 16, 28
33, 48
10, 11, 35-38, 65
19, 38, 41, 52
54.
14
1, 5, 7, 14, 15, 27, 28, 34, 42,
43, 48-50
v, 15, 16, 23, 27-
2
9, 49
v, 19, 20, 24, 51-57
38, 65
41, 52
5, 15, 27, 28, 45, 49, 54
5, 27, 28, 44, 63
55
16, 41, 52
11, 57, 58
41
40, 41
4, 6, 10, 23, 29, 32
30, 31
19
1, 24
27, 28, 44, 63
iii, 2
7, 23
40
15, 33, 59
vi, 21, 22, 24, 54, 55, 69-71
3, 65
39
62
39
v, 1, 3, 4, 6-11, 23-
2
6, 30-3
2
,
59, 60, 67
Individuals
FAREWELL (See Vladimir 1. VErROV)
FEDORA
FISCHER, Ruth
FOX, Francis
FRANKS, Arthur "DickieIt
FUCHS, Klaus
GARBLER, Paul
GARDNER, Meredith
G.4.TES, Robert M.
GMIRKIN, Vasia
GOLD, Harry
GOLDBERG, George
GOLDBERG, Jeffray
GOLENIE.'WSKI, Michel
GOLITSYN, Anatole
GORA, Ewe (See Mrs. EMe SHADRIN)
GORDIEVSKY, Oleg
GaJZENKO, Igor
GREENGRASS, Paul
HARVEY, 'FilUam K.
HAUSMANN, Cynthia
HAl-lICE, Bob
HAYDEN, Bill
HEATH, Edward
HELMS, Richard
HISS, Alger
HOLLIS, Roger
HOOD, William
HOOPER, David
HOOVER, J. Edgar
.HOPKINS, Harry
HOHARD, Edward Lee
HURl', Henry
IGOR
JONES, Furrdval
KALA...lUS, George
KAIDGIN, Oleg D.
KARI.O\f, Peter
KATZ, Joseph
KENNEDY, Joh..l1 F.
KESSLER, Ronald
KHOKHLOV, Nikolai
KING, Mackenzie
KINNOCK, Neil
KIRKPATRI8K, Llfman
- 2 -
32
38
37
50
19, 40, 41
67
19, 20, 39, 40
22
67
19, 41
67
64
8
1, 4-10, 13-15, 20, 22, 23, 26,
28, 30, 31, 33, 35, 36, 42, 43,
55, ,60, 64-68,
vi, 20, 21, 22, 24, 33, 39, 44,
45, 52, 56, 60-63
19, 38, 52-54
18, 24, 42, 46, 47
29, 39
32
47
47
49
26, 60, 66
16, 62
1, 9, 15, 17, 18, 22, 33, 34, 39,
43-45, 48-51, 63
59
19
20, 40, 41, 60
62
11, 57
v, 9, 10, 23, 30
9, 10, 31, 32
43
32
38, 45
67
41
7, 25, 70
v, 11, 24, 57, 58
54
52
51
3
Individuals
KOECHER, Hana
KOECRER, Earl
KOVICH, Richard
KRAVCHENKO, Viktor
LAMPHERE, Robert J.
LARDNER, George
LATHAM, Aaron
LEGGETT, George
LEVCHENKO, Stanislav (Not Victor)
LIDDELL, Guy
LYALIN, Oleg
MACLEAN, Donald
MACMILLAN, Harold
.ANGOLD, Tom
MANN, w'ilfrid Basil
MARCHEl'TI; Victor
MARKS, John D.
M.ARI'rn, Arthur
MARl'IN, David C.
MASSrnG, Hede
!1AURICE (See Anthony BLUNT)
McCOY, Len
McGEHEE, Ralph W.
MILER, Newton S.
MITCHELL, Graham
MITTERRAt-.TD, Francois M.
MOSS, Robert
MURPHY, David
NOSENKO, Yuriy
GANESYAN, Artush
OGANESYAN, Artush Mrs.
GORODNIK, Aleksander D.
ORLOV, Igor
OS,\.,rALD, Lee Harvey
OURSLER, Fulton
PAPICH, Sam
PELTON, Ronald
PENKOVSKY, 01eg
PErROV, Evdokia l1rs.
PETROV, Vladimir
PErTY, Clare Edward
PHILBY, Harold A. R.
PHILLPOTTS, Christopher
PINCHER, Chapman
- 3 -
12, 57, 58
11, 12, 57, 58
67
53
v, 19, 20, 24, 38-41
26
5, 7, 23
62
56
22, 27, 28, 44, 63
55
5, 27, 28, 45, 49, 54
45
vi, 12, 24, 37, 38, 42, 64-68
16, 28, 29
3, 5
3
15-17, 33, 34, 42, 43, 45, 48
v, 8, 23, 26, 29, 30, 64, 69
38
32
3
3, 7, 10, 59
1, 17, 22, 33, 34, 43-46, 49,
50, 63
56
7, 23
67
3, 6-10, 14, 20, 25, 26, 30, 32,
55, 59, 60, 66, 68, 71
55
55
58
68
v, 3, 6, 23, 25, 26, 55
9, 30
26, 40, 59
11, 57
21, 22, 52, 55, 69-71
54
54
8, 10, 29, 36, 59
5, 7, 13-16, 19, 27, 28, 39, ~
49, 52-54
16, 17, 34, 49
v, 8, 16, 19, 23, 24, 33, 34,
39, 44-51
Individuals
POWERS, Thomas
PRD1E, Geoffrey
RA.l-.l'ELAGH, John
RASTVOROV, Yuri
REZUN, Vladimir
ROCCA, ~ o n G.
ROSENBERG, Ethel
ROSENBERG, Julius
ROTHSCHILD, Victor
SASHA
SAWATSKY, John
SCHECTER, Jerrold L.
SHACHTMAN, Tom
SHADRIN, we Mrs.
SHADRIN, Nicholas George
SHARANSKY, Nathan
SHEVCHENKO, Arkady
SKARDON, William
SKRIPKIN, Vladimir
SMITH, Joseph B.
SPRY, Charles
STARNES, John K.
STEWARl', Gordon
STOCKWELL, John
STONE (See Anatole GOLITSYN)
SUI.J..IVAN, William C.
SUVOROV, Victor (See Vladimir REZUN)
TANGO (See Gilles BRUNEr)
THATCHER, Margaret Mrs.
TREND, Burke
TRENTO, Joseph
TRENT0, Susan
TSAREV, Oleg
TURNBULL, Malcolm
TURNER, Stansfield
VASSALL, John
VErROV, Vladimir I.
VOLKOV, Konstantin
WALKER, John
WEINSTEIN, Allen
WEISBAND, t-!illiam
\-lEST, Nigel
WHITE, Dick
WINKS, Robin
WISE, David
lh"RIGHT, Peter
YURCHENKO, Vitali
- 4 -
10, 23, 71
16
12, 64
54
56
59
41, 62
41, 62
17, 22, 34, 44, 45, 49, 50, 63
13, 68
v, 10, 23, 35-38
vi, 21, 22, 24, 55, 69-71
v, 24, 38-41
9, 10, 30-32
9, 10, 30-32
57
20, 52, 55
40, 41
53, 54
3
65
37
26
3
10, 26
8, 9, 14-18, 27, 33, 34, 39,
47-51
18
1, 8, 9, 24
1, 24
63
v, 18, 19, 24, 45-48, 50, 51
7, 9, 26,
68
52, 56
53
11, 57
16
39
v, 19, 23,24, 44-46, 48
66
, 64
vi, 13, 24, 67-69
v, 17, 18, 24, 33, 34, 42-51,
63, 65
31, 59
Books
AGENCY: THE RISE AND DECLINE OF THE CIA, THE
CLIMATE OF TREASON: FIVE WHO SPIED FOR RUSSIA, THE
COLD WARRIOR: JAMES JESUS ANGLETON: THE CIA'S
MASTER SPY HUNTER
DECEPrION: THE INVISIBLE WA..';l BETWEEN THE KGB AND
THE CIA
FBI!KGBWAR: A SPECIAL AGENT'S STORY, THE
FOR SERVICES RENDERED: LESLIE JAMES BENNETT AND
THE RCMP SEOJRITY SERVICE
FOURTH MAN, THE (See THE CLIMATE OF TREASON: FIVE
\-rno SPIED FOR RUSSIA)
HONORABLE MEN
INQUEST: THE WARREN COMMISSION AND THE ESTABLISHMENT
OF TRIJ.TH
INSIDE THE COMPANY: CIA DIARY
KGB: THE INSIDE STORY OF ITS OPERATIONS FROM
LENIN TO GDRBACHEV
KGB: THE SECRET OF SOVIET SECRET AGENTS
KGB TODAY: THE HIDDEN HAND
LEGEND: THE SECRET WORLD OF LEE HARVEY OSWALD
MAN WHO KEPT THE SECRETS: RICHARD HELMS A.."ID
THE CIA, THE
MASK OF TREACHERY
MATTER OF TRUST: MI-5, 1945-72, A
MEN IN THE SHADOilS
MOLEHUNT: THE FULL STORY OF THE SOVIEr SPY IN
MI-5
MOLEHUNl': THE SECRET SEARCH FOR TRAITORS THAT
SHATTERED CIA
NDl LIES FOR OLD
OFFICIAL SECRETS
ORCHIDS FOR MOTHER
PERJURY: THE HISS-CHAJ.lBERS CASE
ROPE DANCER, THE
SECRET SERVICE: THE MAKING OF THE BRITISH
INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY
SHADRIN: THE SPY WHO NEllER CAME BACK
SPIKE, THE
SPY T,-THO SAVED THE WORLD: HOW A SOVIET COLONEL
CHANGED THE COURSE OF THE COLD HAR, THE
SPY VS SPY: THE SHOCKmG STORY OF THE FBI'S
SECRET WAR AGAINST SOVIET AGENTS IN AMERICA
SPYCATOHER AFFAIR, THE
12
v, 15, 23, 27-29,
44
vi, 12, 13, 24,
37, 64-67
v, 10, 24, 26,
59, 60
v, 19, 24, 38-41
v, 10, 23, 35-38
10, 23
25
3
vi, 21, 24, 25,
61-63
62
62
v, 3, 6, 7, 9, 10,
23, 25, 26, 30,
32, 59, 60
10, 23, 71
27, 28
23
35
v, 19, 24, 44-46, 48
vi, 13, 24, 67-69
10, 15, 23
19
6, 23
16
5
62
v, 9, 23, 30-32
7, 23
vi, 21, 24, 25,
69-71
v, 11, 24, 57, 58
v, 19, 24, 44, 46,
48-51
- 5-
Books
SFYCATCHER: THE CANDID BIOORAPHY OF ASENIOR
INTELLIGENCE OFFICER
SFYCATCHER TRIAL, THE
STORM BIRDS: SOVIEr POST-v,JAR DEF&::TORS, THE
srORM PETRElS, THE
THEIR TRADE IS TREACHERY
TOO SECRET TOO LONG
't\TAS THERE AFIFTH MAN?
liES OF DECEPTION
WIDo\-lS: FOUR AMERICAN SPIES, THE 'IIDES THEY
LEFl' BEHIND AND THE KGB I S CRIPPLING OF
AMERICAN INTELLIGENCE
WILDERNESS OF MIRRORS
Organizations
Army Security Agenqy (ASA)
Australian Department of Defense
Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO)
Central Intelligence Agenqy (CIA)
Chinese Intelligence Service
CZech Intelligence Service
Defense Intelligence Agenqy (DIA)
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
Fluenqy Corrunittee (MI-5/MI-6)
French Intelligence Service
Garrick Club
Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye (GRU)
Government Headquarters (GCHQ)
Israeli Intelligence Service
Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (KGB)
(including predecessor organizations)
National Alliance of Russian Solidarity
v, 1, 5, 16-19, 24,
34, 42-44, 47, 49,
51
v, 19, 24, 45-48,
50
v, 19, 20, 24,
51-57
52
v, 8, 16, 17, 23,
33, 34, 39, 45,
47, 48, 50, 51
34
28
48
1, 24
v, 8, ,26, 29,
30, 64, 69
39
47
47, 54, 65
iii, 1, 3, 4, 6-8,
10-13, 16, 22, 25,
26, 29-31, 33, 35,
39-41, 53-60,
64-71
11, 57, 58
11, 12, 57, 58
31
3, 6, 9-11, 19, 25,
27, 30-32, 38-41,
57-60, 64, 66
44
56
47
20, 52, 53, 56,
69-71
16, 38
12, 65
3-9, 11, 19-22,
25, 26, 31-33, 36,
38-41, 45, 52-63,
66, 68-71
54
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Organizations
National Intelligence study Center (NISC)
National Security Agency (NSA)
Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI)
Royal Canadian Mounted. Police (RCMP)
Secret Intelligence Service (SIS)(MI-6)
Security Service (MI-5)
Security and Intelligence Fund (SIF)
Sidgwick and Jackson Limited
Soviet Purchasing Commission
United. States Army
United States House of Representatives -
Select Committee on Assassinations
United States Navy
Voyska Spetsiallnogo (SPErSNAZ)
Vserossiyskaya Chrezvychaynaya Komissiya Po
Borlbe S Sabotazhem I
(CHEKA/VChK)
UNOFFICIAL INDEX
69
11, 19, 20, 38,
39, 57
31
10, 11, 35-38, 52
7, 13-17, 33, 34,
39, 44, 48-50, 53,
55, 59, 66, 70,
71
8, 9, 14-18, 24,
33, 34, 39-50, 55,
68
6
49
53
39
26, 29
11, 31, 57
56
62
Privately compiled by -
Major Donald I. Sweany, Jr., AUS-Ret.
Annapolis
March 1994
t
.
- 7 -